Nepal has a long and very special history in snow leopard conservation. Research and conservation efforts in Nepal were path finding for the wider snow leopard community. In this month’s Webinar, we are delighted to welcome Gopal Khanal, who is currently working as Assistant Conservation Officer in Shey Phoksundo, the largest National Park of Nepal and home to a significant population of snow leopards. We also are joined by Dr. Som Ale, a member of SLN’s Committee, who has been working in snow leopard conservation in Nepal, for over two decades. Together, our guests bridge past and present, with a special focus on community based conservation, through the lens of policy and research. We also look towards Nepal’s snow leopard conservation agenda for the next decade.
Using Drones To Assess Populations Of Snow Leopard Prey Species – A Preliminary Report and Video
In 2019, a group of researchers traveled to Mongolia to test the utility of employing drone (UAV) technology for assessing the abundance of snow leopard prey species like argali and ibex. Dr. Rodney Jackson, the Snow Leopard Conservancy’s Director was accompanied by Dr. Don Hunter of Colorado’s Rocky Mountain Cat Conservancy, Dr. Bariushaa Munkhtsog of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Biology, and Irbis Mongolia, and videographer Ben Hunter of the Isaacson School for New Media, Colorado Mountain College.
Snow leopards are at risk of extinction due to a wide variety of threats, including retaliatory killing, poaching, prey depletion, and habitat loss and disruption. In order to help this species survive, it’s important to know their numbers, distribution, and characteristic behaviors. However, being an inhabitant of a high-mountain environment snow leopards are very difficult to locate and study. Newer non-invasive research methods like trail cameras and fecal genotyping have been helpful, but there still remains the question as to how many snow leopards and prey remain in the wild – questions which lie at the very heart of the 12 range state GSLEP-supported PAWS program.
Given that it is very difficult and expensive to count the cats, an easier, less-expensive alternative is assessing the abundance of their large prey species like ibex, argali, and blue sheep. Snow leopards and other predators thrive in areas with a healthy and stable prey base. Therefore, one can infer snow leopard population capacity based on the number of available prey, including wild and domestic ungulates (hoofed stock).
Some wild ungulates are easier to observe as they prefer open terrain, but they still occupy a vast habitat. In recent years, drones equipped with infrared thermal (temperature) sensors have proven effective for rapidly surveying more habitat than is possible by a person walking along transects and counting the wildlife observed.
After successfully testing the drone surveying deer (mountain lion prey) in Colorado, the team traveled to Mongolia’s Ikh Nart Nature Reserve in the East Gobi Province and Toost Uul Community Reserve, located in the South Gobi. A commercial-grade drone, the DJI Matrice 210, utilizing thermography and a powerful zoom lens was deployed to detect and assess numbers of argali and ibex along several fixed transects that have been surveyed annually over the last 20 years under a program established by Denver Zoo.
Though preliminary, the results were very encouraging. The drone detected a total of 37 argali in six groups along one 4-km (2.5-mile) transect, as illustrated below. This and other transects are monitored annually by ground observers that walk and note animals one kilometer (approx. 1,100 yards) on either side. However, not all parts of each transect is visible to them. Using GIS and a 30 meter DEM (Digital Elevation Model), we mapped the rough extent of terrain, the “viewshed,” visible to observers walking the transect centerline, indicated by the green-shaded areas. The brown areas were obscured to the ground observers but visible to the drone flying at 100 m (330 feet) above ground level.
As shown in the figure, four of the six argali groups were in areas obscured from human observation, areas such as hidden valleys, gullies or behind rocky outcrops, and thus only visible to the drone flying overhead. The drone covered the entire transect in a fully autonomous 20-minute flight covering the four transect segments shown in black. In all, it was a very promising start to a project that clearly merits continued study.
Click the link below to view a video of the project produced Ben Hunter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSszMTNKN_4&feature=emb_title
This project was supported by a Sabin Foundation grant the Rocky Mountain Cat Conservancy received from Panthera. Thanks also to the SLC donors for their support.
Submitted by Dr. Rodney Jackson, Dr. Don Hunter and Dr. B. Munkhtsog.
Publication Alert – New Article to the Bibliography
Dear Members,
Please find details below, of a new article added to our Bibliography:
Title: Understanding population baselines: status of mountain ungulate
populations in the Central Tien Shan Mountains, Kyrgyzstan
Authors: Khanyari, M., Zhumabai uulu, K., Luecke, S., Mishra, C.,
Suryawanshi, K.
Abstract: We assessed the density of argali (Ovis ammon) and ibex
(Capra sibirica) in Sarychat-Ertash Nature Reserve and its neighbouring
Koiluu valley. Sarychat is a protected area, while Koiluu is a human-use
landscape which is a partly licenced hunting concession for mountain
ungulates and has several livestock herders and their permanent
residential structures. Population monitoring of mountain ungulates can
help in setting measurable conservation targets such as appropriate
trophy hunting quotas and to assess habitat suitability for predators
like snow leopards (Panthera uncia). We employed the double-observer
method to survey 573 km2 of mountain ungulate habitat inside Sarychat
and 407 km2 inside Koiluu. The estimated densities of ibex and argali in
Sarychat were 2.26 (95% CI 1.47–3.52) individuals km-2 and 1.54 (95% CI
1.01–2.20) individuals km-2, respectively. Total ungulate density in
Sarychat was 3.80 (95% CI 2.47–5.72) individuals km-2. We did not record
argali in Koiluu, whereas the density of ibex was 0.75 (95% CI
0.50–1.27) individuals km-2. While strictly protected areas can achieve
high densities of mountain ungulates, multi-use areas can harbour
meaningful
though suppressed populations. Conservation of mountain ungulates and
their predators can be enhanced by maintaining Sarychat-like “pristine”
areas interspersed within a matrix of multi-use areas like Koiluu.
URL:
https://snowleopardnetwork
With regards,
Rakhee
Snow leopard research and conservation in Nepal: Past, Present and Future
Snow leopard research and conservation in Nepal: Past, Present and Future
The Snow Leopard Network is pleased to announce our fifth SLN webinar of 2020 where we travel to Nepal. This Webinar series aims explicitly to feature snow leopard range country national updates and experience. As our SLN committee chair, Dr. Lu Zhi, suggested as she launched the webinar series – it is a pleasure to take this opportunity to learn from each other and build links between our efforts across the snow leopard range.
Nepal has a long and very special history in snow leopard conservation. Research and conservation efforts in Nepal were path finding for the wider snow leopard community. In this month’s Webinar are delighted to welcome Gopal Khanal who is currently working as Assistant Conservation Officer in Shey Phoksundo, the largest National Park of Nepal home to a significant population of snow leopards. We also will be joined by Dr. Som Ale, a member of SLN’s Committee, who has been working in snow leopard conservation in Nepal for over two decades. Together our guests will bridge past and present with a special focus on community based conservation through the lens of policy and research. We will also look towards Nepal’s snow leopard conservation agenda for the next decade.
More on the talk: Nepal is believed to host 10% of the global snow leopard population. Since the early 1970s Nepal has adopted both an ecosystem approach (establishing protected areas) and species approach to conserve, research and monitor the country’s snow leopards. Gopal will share his thoughts on recent developments and give us insights on some promising recent snow leopard research and conservation efforts in Nepal. Som Ale will join as discussant and provide a longer term perspective of Nepal’s conservation efforts and will set this within future snow leopard conservation priorities.
More about our guests:
Gopal Khanal currently works for Shey Phoksundo National Park office, Dolpa as an Assistant Conservation Officer. He has been working on snow leopard research and conservation in the Nepal Himalayas since 2014. He completed his Master’s degree in wildlife biology and conservation. His master’s thesis examined the influence of wild prey and livestock on snow leopard predation on livestock in Nepal.
Som Ale spent over a decade working as a conservation manager in north central Nepal and was Officer in Charge of Nepal’s National Trust for Nature Conservation – Annapurna Conservation Area Project. Som now lives in the United States and serves as a professor of biology and ecology at the University of Illinois – Chicago. Dr. Ale is passionate about protecting the snow leopard in ways that benefit the animals, environment, culture, and community; and has developed powerful, unique, and engaging conservation initiatives.
Date/Time: August 25th, 2020 Tuesday 17:45 Kathmandu time (Please log into the meeting 5 min early to set up)
Location: ZOOM, to join this talk REGISTER HERE
Please note:
- If you have never used Zoom before, we recommend that you try the link 10 minutes before the start of the lecture.
- During the talk, please keep your microphone muted.
- Please feel free to write questions in the comment area and there will be time for questions/discussion at the end of the talk.
- The Zoom event is limited to 100 participants. Please register for the event and also sign in early to ensure your place.
Publication Alert – New Article to the Bibliography
Please see details below, of a new article added to our Bibliography.
Title: Patterns of Livestock Depredation and Large Carnivore
Conservation Implications in the Indian Trans-Himalaya
Authors: Maheshwari, A., Sathyakumar, S.
Abstract: Livestock is one of the major sources of livelihood for the
agro-pastoral communities in central and south Asia. Livestock
depredation by large carnivores is a wide-ranging issue that leads to
economic losses and a deviance from co-existence. We investigated the
grass root factors causing livestock depredation in Kargil, Ladakh and
tested the findings of diet analysis in validating reported livestock
depredation. Globally vulnerable snow leopard (Panthera uncia) and more
common wolf (Canis lupus) were the two main wild predators. A total of
1113 heads of livestock were reportedly killed by wolf (43.6%) followed
by unknown predators (31.4%) and snow leopard (21.5%) in the study site
from 2009 to 2012, which comes to 2.8% annual livestock losses. Scat
analysis also revealed a significant amount of livestock in the diet of
snow leopard (47%) and wolf (51%). Poor livestock husbandry practices
and traditional livestock corrals were found to be the major drivers
contributing in the livestock depredation. Based on the research
findings, we worked with the local communities to sensitize them about
wildlife conservation and extended limited support for predator proof
livestock corrals at a small scale. Eventually it helped in reducing
conflict level and conserving the globally threatened carnivores. We
conclude that a participatory approach has been successful to generate
an example in reducing large carnivore-human conflict in the west
Himalaya.
URL:
https://snowleopardnetwork.org
Snow leopard conservation: Reflections from the past
We would like to invite you to our fourth SLN webinar of 2020. This webinar takes us back to consider snow leopard conservation efforts over the longer term. We are extremely pleased to welcome our guest Dr. Raghu Chundawat, who has followed snow leopard conservation since the 1980s.
Our guest is interviewed by Dr. Koustubh Sharma, for 30 min, followed by a 30 min discussion period with Dr. Joseph Fox, who joined us as a discussant. Raghu reflects on a time when very little was known about the snow leopard. In particular, he shares recollections of the very real challenges of studying snow leopards in the wild. Watch this very special Webinar where we travel to the past and hear important perspectives of conservation developing over this extensive stretch of time.