Snow Leopard Trust announces recipient of the annual
Freeman Award for Snow Leopard Conservation
Each year the Snow Leopard Trust and the family of Helen Freeman select one person to receive the Freeman Award for Snow Leopard Conservation.The selection is based on the person’s commitment and contributions to conserving snow leopards in the wild.The award carries with it a $1,000 USD prize.This is only the second year the prize has been awarded, the first Freeman Award having gone to A. Bayarjargal of Mongolia.
This year’s recipient is Alexander Esipov of Uzbekistan.
Alexander (Sasha) Esipov is the Deputy Director of Chatkal Nature Reserve and researcher with the Institute of Zoology of the Uzbek Academy of Sciences. He has compiled nearly 3 decades of field work primarily in the study of mammals of Uzbekistan and other Central Asian states. He developed a love of felids in the early 1980s and this brought him to snow leopards, a species he has worked tirelessly to protect ever since.He was a founding member of Asia Irbis in 1998, a regional NGO devoted to conserving snow leopards in the wild.Asia-Irbis formulated an action plan for the protection of Snow Leopard within the former Soviet Union and implemented several conservation projects with support from the International Snow Leopard Trust.
In 2002 Sasha attended the Snow Leopard Survival Summit in Seattle and played a very active role in development of the Snow Leopard Survival Strategy.He is now serving his second term on the Steering Committee of the Snow Leopard Network (SLN).
With funding from an SLT Small Grant, Sasha co-authored a Snow Leopard Conservation Action Plan for Uzbekistan in 2003.In 2006 he led an effort to collect and catalog all of the Russian-language snow leopard literature and make it available through the on-line bibliography of the SLN.He helped to write English summaries for nearly 300 scholarly articles.This undertaking has provided broad access to an incredible amount of previously published but difficult to access information.
In all of his efforts, Sasha is joined by his wife Elena, also a wildlife biologist, making them a real snow leopard family.
Alexander Esipov epitomizes the kind of drive and ambition to save snow leopards that Helen Freeman would certainly have appreciated.
Congratulations to Alexander, the second recipient of the annual Freeman Award for Snow Leopard Conservation!
The following snow leopard sighting was reported by SLN member Ashok Bhurtyal:
“This February, I was on a two-week long walk in the LangtangNational Park. On 21 Feb 2009, I spotted a rare snow leopard in the Cholang Kharka area. The young adult cat sprang up from the hillside onto the trek trail! It took a few turns around, saw me, was not scared of me, me neither! It was like a good friendship. I opened my handycam and caught it on tape, taking care not to scare away the beautiful cat. After about 10 seconds of filming, the leopard went slowly to I don’t know where. I followed the track but could not locate the animal again. Meeting this mammal was both unexpected and very rewarding.
I was in Langtang region to generate and offer some support for health and health care in collaboration with local peasants. Excitedly, I met the cat! I wish to share the video with interested individuals and organisations. And also hope to generate some support for improving health in Langtang.
Further, I would be very happy to find a competent videography expert/professional who would capture my mini DV cassette into media file to be stored and played on a computer. I can offer some remuneration commensurate with local prices prevailing in Kathmandu.
Sincerely,
Ashok Bhurtyal
Director of Programmes
People’s Health Initiative
(Volunteer group working passionaltely to improve health in Nepali Mountains) Kathmandu, Nepal”
The Dalai Lama has called for an end to illegal wildlife trafficking between Nepal, Tibet, India and China.
He is appealing to exiled Tibetans, who are increasingly involved in the bloody trade, to remember their dedication to Buddhist non-violence.
Last year, Tibetan officials intercepted 32 tiger, 579 leopard and 665 otter skins in one single shipment.
This prompted the Dalai Lama and a pair of wildlife charities to launch an awareness drive around the Himalayas.
“We Tibetans are basically Buddhists, we preach love and compassion towards all other living beings on Earth,” said the exiled Tibetan leader. “Therefore, it is the responsibility of all of us to realise the importance of wildlife conservation. We must realise that because of our follies a large number of our animals are getting killed.”
The Dalai Lama is working with the charities Care for the Wild International (CWI), from the UK, and the Wildlife Trust of India, to promote an understanding of the damage illegal trading can cause.
The team plan to make videos and leaflets which they will take to Tibetan refugee settlements around India. They also hope to broadcast anti-poaching messages over the TV and radio.
“Thousands will be reached in this way,” said Barbara Maas of CWI. “Eventually, we hope to reach every single one – we will go to schools, we will go to refugee camps, we will go to villages.”
Urgent action
Dr Maas says the project has a sense of urgency because illegal wildlife trading is set to get worse, thanks to a new train line being constructed between the old Tibetan capital of Lhasa and Beijing, the capital of China.
This new transport link will make things easier for poachers wishing to shift animal body parts.
“You can imagine what will happen when the train link opens,” said Dr Maas. “So we are trying to pour water on the flames as they are at the moment and also take pre-emptive action.”
Other charities are in strong support of this new initiative.
“Our own investigation has shown that Tibetans are heavily involved in the organised smuggling of tiger and leopard skins between India and Tibet, and that Tibet is a major market and distribution point for these skins,” said Debbie Banks, of the Environmental Investigation Agency.
“We are encouraged that the Dalai Lama is taking action on this serious issue and hope that his message helps to prevent this disgusting trade from spiralling further out of control.”
CWI claims that the illegal wildlife trade is devastating populations of endangered Himalayan and sub-Himalayan wildlife such as tigers, leopards, snow leopards, otters and bears.
Many of these animal body parts head for China, where they find their way into the traditional medicine market.
Wildlife organisations have long worried about this sad pilgrimage, but few have appealed to people’s religious sensibilities to prevent it.
The Dalai Lama carries enormous weight, especially with Tibetans living in exile, so his voice is likely to be heard.
“It is in the Pali and Sanskrit tradition to show love and compassion for all living beings,” he said at a press conference in New Delhi, India. “It is a shame that we kill these poor creatures to satisfy our own aggrandisement.
“We must realise that because of our follies a large number of our animals are getting killed and we must stop this.”
Loud voice
The CWI is under no illusion about the importance of the Dalai Lama backing the campaign.
“This campaign starts and ends with him,” said Dr Maas. “If it was just us saying: ‘Oh please don’t do it’, I’m not sure it would do much good. But His Holiness will make all the difference.”
Underpinning the whole campaign is the hope that, in the end, people all over the world will want to save endangered species not because we can benefit from them financially, but because it is wrong to kill them.
The Dalai Lama said: “Today more than ever before life must be characterised by a sense of universal responsibility not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.”
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/4415929.stm
GANGTOK: Pugmarks of a Royal Bengal Tiger have been found in the snow at an altitude of 10,000 feet in the Himalayas near Jelepla in eastern Sikkim after a gap of nearly 18 years, officials said.
Officials called it a rare discovery, since tigers are usually found in the plains and almost never above 6,000 feet.
The latest pugmarks were photographed March 27 in the Ganek-Lungto area in eastern Sikkim, Divisional Forest Officer (Wildlife) Karma Legshey said.
Tiger pugmarks were last officially recorded at this altitude in Sikkim some 18 years ago, by then divisional forest officer Tshesum Lachungpa.
Legshey said forest officials were on a routine patrol when they found the pugmarks on the snow in the northeastern part of the Pangolakha Wildlife Sanctuary in Sikkim.
The team then recorded the altitude of the pugmark site using the Global Positioning System. They also measured the pugmarks and photographed it, he added.
“The pugmarks measure 19 cm long and 17 cm wide with a stride of around 110 cm,” Legshey said, adding that a subsequent study confirmed the pugmarks as being those of a Royal Bengal Tiger.
He added that the trail of around 70 metres (of the animal’s track) resembled that of a tiger on a “normal walk”. The team then followed the track from Ganek to Devithan from where the terrain became too steep to follow.
“After making necessary arrangements at the site, we came down to Zuluk from where it was possible to catch the mobile telecom network and informed our superiors of our find. Immediately, a team from WWF-India, Sikkim Programme Office, led by Partho Ghosh, a tiger expert, left for the site and conducted necessary studies on the spot,” Legshey said.
“After interviews with local residents and senior officials, it was presumed that the animal is a female,” he added.
The residents in the area heard tiger roars in the past and also came across carcasses
of yaks and goats killed by the animal, Legshey said.
He said the tiger might have crossed into Sikkim from Bhutan through the Pangolakha Wildlife Sanctuary, which is a forest extending into the neighbouring country.
Currently, a team of forest officials is camping at Zuluk to monitor and alert the villagers, police and defence personnel about the probable presence of a tiger in their midst.
Meanwhile, forest officials have urged the local residents not to harm the animal even if it attacks livestock, and assured appropriate compensation in case of an attack.
Tigers have been reported to prowl in the forests of Lachen and Lachung in northern Sikkim at an altitude above 8,000 feet, but sightings have been rare.
At least four protected areas were on fire for an unusually long time until just a few days ago.
Nasa’s satellite imagery showed most of the big fires were in and around the national parks along the country’s northern areas bordering Tibet.
Active fires were recorded in renowned conservation success stories like the Annapurna, Kanchanjunga, Langtang and Makalu Barun national parks.
The extent of the loss of flora and fauna is not yet known.
Press reports said more than 100 yaks were killed by fire in the surrounding areas of the KanjanchangaNational Park in eastern Nepal.
Trans-Himalayan parks host rare species such as snow leopards, red pandas and several endangered birds.
Carbon source
More than the loss of plants and animals, the carbon dioxide emitted by the fires was a matter of concern, according to Ghanashyam Gurung, a director at WWF’s Nepal office.
Some of the national parks in the plains bordering India were also on fire, but those caused less concern among conservationists and forest officials.
“Fires in the protected areas in the plain lands can be controlled easily because we have logistics and manpower ready for that – and that is what we did this time,” said Laxmi Manandhar, spokesman for Nepal‘s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation.
“But in the national parks in the Himalayan region, we could hardly do anything because of the difficult geography. Nor do we have facilities of pouring water using planes and helicopters.”
Forest fires in Nepal‘s jungles and protected areas are not uncommon during the dry season between October and January.
Most of the fires come about as a consequence of the “slash and burn” practice that farmers employ for better vegetation and agricultural yields.
But this time the fires remained out of control even in the national parks in the Himalayan region where the slash and burn practice is uncommon.
In some of the protected areas, the fires flared up even after locals and officials tried to put them out for several days.
High and dry
So, why were the fires so different this time?
“The most obvious reason was the unusually long dry spell this year,” says Mr Gurung, just back in Kathmandu from LangtangNational Park to the north of the capital.
“The dryness has been so severe that pine trees in the Himalayan region are thoroughly dry even on the top, which means even a spark is enough to set them on fire.”
For nearly six months, no precipitation has fallen across most of the country – the longest dry spell in recent history, according to meteorologists.
“This winter was exceptionally dry,” says Department of Hydrology and Meteorology chief Nirmal Rajbhandari.
“We have seen winter becoming drier and drier in the last three or four years, but this year has set the record.”
Rivers are running at their lowest, and because most of Nepal‘s electricity comes from hydropower, the country has been suffering power cuts up to 20 hours a day.
Experts at the department said the severity of dryness fits in the pattern of increasing extreme weather Nepal has witnessed in recent years.
Had it not been for recent drizzles, conservationists say some of the national parks would still be on fire.
They point to “cloud burst phenomena” – huge rainfall within a short span of time during monsoons, and frequent, sudden downpours in the Himalayan foothills – as more examples of extreme weather events.
“Seeing all these changes happening in recent years, we can contend that this dryness that led to so much fire is one of the effects of climate change,” said Mr Rajbhandari.
Anil Manandhar, head of WWF Nepal, had this to ask: Are we waiting for a bigger disaster to admit that it is climate change?
“The weather pattern has changed, and we know that there are certain impacts of climate change.”
Gaps in the record
However, climate change expert Arun Bhakta Shrestha of the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) was cautious about drawing conclusions.
“The prolonged dryness this year, like other extreme events in recent years, could be related to climate change but there is no proper basis to confirm that.
“The reason (why there is no confirmation) is lack of studies, observation and data that could have helped to reach into some conclusion regarding the changes.”
Indeed, there has been no proper study of the impacts of climate change on the region: not just in Nepal but in the entire Hindu Kush Himalayas.
This is the reason why the region has been dubbed as a “white spot” by experts, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Limited studies have shown that temperature in the Himalayas has been increasing on average by 0.06 degrees annually, causing glaciers to melt and retreat faster.
The meltdown has been rapidly filling up many glacial lakes that could break their moraines and burst out, sweeping away everything downstream.
In Nepal and neighbouring countries, these “glacial lake outburst floods” and monsoon-related floods resulting from erratic rainfalls are at present the most talked-about disasters in the context of climate change.
If conservationists’ and meteorologists’ latest fears mean anything, forest fires may also be something that would be seen as one of the climate impacts.
In the wake of the 2007 United Nations climate change conference in Bali, Nepal has been preparing to join an international effort known as Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD).
But if the forest fires it saw this year became a regular phenomenon, the country will instead be emitting increased carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – a case of climate science’s not very aptly-named “positive feedback”.
Photographs & Text By Michael Obert
Translated by Jason Nickels
An excerpt from the article that mentions availability of snow leopard fur coats:
Chicken Street, in downtown Kabul, is a string of souvenir shops. Indeed, the only thing that you cannot buy on Chicken Street is chickens, which are available a little further along, on Flower Street. Shop windows boast everything from blown glass from Herat and embroidery from Uzbekistan, to coats made from the fur of the last of the snow leopards, semi-precious lapis lazuli, Central Asian antiques, kilim and Persian rugs. Some of the rugs feature the face of George W Bush wailing bitterly; others depict the WorldTradeCenter in flames as an F-16 squadron flies over an outline of Afghanistan.
Residents of a Polish village are living in fear as a large wild cat stalks the rural area feasting on their livestock. Locals in the village – in Poland‘s southwest, near Opole – have been warned to only travel by car and to stay inside at night while the cat remains on the loose.Experts have analysed hair left at kill scenes and believe the cat to be a rare snow leopard. The animal is known to be fast, agile and very dangerous.However, the randomness of the strikes doesn’t fit with typical feeding habits associated with the breed, and experts are worrying the cat has upped the ante because it is bored.To date, the only image of the large cat is jumpy and grainy cellphone footage. But locals are convinced the cat is out there and are heeding warnings until it’s caught.
Video found here: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/viewmedia/74505Killer Cat Roams PolandResidents in south western Poland are living in fear of a mysterious predator blamed for attacking and killing livestock over the past few days.The animal is thought to be a rare snow leopard. It’s has been sighted numerous times around Opole and has even been recorded on a mobile phone camera by a resident of Biala village. At another location, a driver informed the police that a big cat had jumped over his moving car while chasing a deer.Second video link: http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/2009/03/snow-leopard-in-poland.html
Following the success of last yearo’ IPROMO summer course, we are happy to announce the second training course on sustainable mountain development for Mountain Partnership members. The programme, called IPROMO — International Programme for Education and Training on Sustainable Management of Mountain Areas — will feature this year a summer course devoted to developing economic opportunities for mountain areas.
During its first week, the course will provide an overview of traditional and innovative tools for the sustainability of mountain economy. Three separate topics will be the object of the second week: a) mountain eco-tourism b) mountain agriculture; c) mountain forestry. Please see the attached programme for detailed information.
The course will run from 17 July to 1 August 2009. It will be held in research institutes in Monte Rosa and in the University campus in Grugliasco (Piedmont region of Italy). Field activities will be held in the Alta Valsesia Natural Park, Monte Avic Natural Park, Montmars Natural Reserve.
The IPROMO Programme has been jointly organized by the Mountain Partnership Secretariat at FAO, the UNESCO decade on Education for Sustainable Development and the University of Turin, Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Protection of Agroforestry Resources; it benefits from the patronage of the Italian Foreign Affairs Ministry.
Main funding sources include the Piedmont Region, the Alta Valsesia Natural Park, the Vercelli Province, the Alagna town council, and CAI Varallo Sesia.
The course – which will be held in English – will be open to a maximum of 30 professionals mainly from developing countries as well as from EU countries with a University degree and working in mountain development at both public and private levels. The organizers will make available a limited number of fellowships which will cover all costs for participants coming from developing countries and countries in transition.
Please note that the three course topics of week two will take place at the same time and therefore candidates need to specify their interest in the application message.
Who is interested in participating should send a detailed CV along with the attached registration form by March 30 to rosalaura.romeo@fao.org – ermanno.zanini@unito.it and silvia.stanchi@unito.it specifying if financial support would be required.
Thank you,
Mountain Partnership Secretariat
www.ipromo-school.it/en/
www.mountainpartnership.org
The Mountain Partnership is a voluntary alliance of partners dedicated to improving the lives of mountain people and protecting mountain environments around the world.
www.mountainpartnership.org
________________________________
Sanjib K. Chaudhary (sanjib) Published 2009-03-18 16:17 (KST) in Korea’s OhmyNewsOne of the world’s most beautiful and elusive cats, the snow leopards (Uncia uncia), considered God’s pets by the local communities in the Himalayas, are in grave danger. They inhabit the high, rugged, harsh and barren environs and are distributed in the Himalayas, Hindu Kush and Pamir mountains. With an estimated world population of just 3,500 to 7,000 in the wild, they are listed on the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species as “endangered.”
The snow leopards weigh between 27 and 54 kilograms, their body length ranges between 0.74 and 1.30 metres with a tail nearly the same length. They possess thick fur, which is pale with dark-gray to black spots. This aids in hunting by helping to camouflage the cat against the rocky slopes. Its large, broad paws act like snowshoes. The snow leopard even has a built-in scarf; its long, bushy tail that it often wraps around its body and face for added warmth when resting. This same tail helps the cat keep its balance as it leaps among rocky outcrops and narrow ledges after its agile prey. Its powerfully built, barrel-shaped chest gives it the strength to climb the steep slopes. Its long, muscular hind legs enable it to leap up to 10 metres — nearly six times its body length — in pursuit of prey.
Poaching for Pelt and Bones
The snow leopards are poached for their valuable fur and bones used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). As the demand for Asian big cat bones increases, TCM producers turn to other large cats such as the clouded leopard and snow leopard as substitutes for the tiger bones. The bone trade is rapidly replacing fur trade. Herders living along Nepal‘s northern border have been known to exchange snow leopard bones for domestic sheep breeding stock from Tibet. The sale of bones offers poor mountain communities an opportunity to generate substantial income, especially where enforcement is weak and the penalties insignificance.Herders’ Headache
As the natural prey base depletes, the snow leopards attack livestock and fall victim to retaliatory killing. “Loss of prey mainly occurs due to poaching of prey species like musk deer and Himalayan tahr or due to the competition for grazing grounds between livestock and prey species,” says Kamal Thapa, Research Officer with WWF. “Snow leopards get killed in retaliation by the herders when they attack livestock during times when their natural prey is scarce.”
Human-snow leopard conflicts often increase in the winter, as the cats follow the herds of Himalayan blue sheep down to lower altitudes. Food is scarce, and hungry snow leopards occasionally kill and eat domestic livestock. In an incident, a snow leopard killed 100 sheep and goats in its single attack in the LangtangValley in Nepal. The herders are poor and the loss of even a single yak, sheep or goat is an unbearable pain for them. One herder said, “Snow leopards are robbers, they kill our yak and sheep.” “If I find a snow leopard, I will kill it and eat its heart first.”Communities to the Rescue of Snow Leopards
Despite the human-snow leopard conflict, people are now conscious that snow leopards are endangered and they should be saved. The herd owners have set up a common fund which is administered and managed by the Snow Leopard Conservation Committee — made up of members of the local community. This committee is responsible for monitoring livestock depredation trends, fundraising, verifying claims, and deciding on the appropriate compensation, raising awareness on snow leopards conservation and monitoring prey population. This is very much a scheme for the herders by the herders.
The Livestock Insurance Scheme has proved to be one of the important tools to reduce conflicts between snow leopards and humans. When herders are compensated financially for occasional losses of their cattle they are less likely to kill snow leopards in retaliation as they no longer have to fear financial ruin. This scheme has been used in India, Pakistan and Nepal — where WWF created the first scheme in the Kangchenjunga Conservation Area of Eastern Nepal. Experience has shown that the livestock insurance scheme has proved effective in preventing retaliatory killing of snow leopards.
A Good Future Ahead
There are 350 to 500 snow leopards in the wild in Nepal. They inhabit the Nepal‘s mountain protected areas from Kangchenjunga Conservation Area in the east to SheyPhoksundoNational Park in the west. Replication of the successful Livestock Insurance Scheme in all the snow leopard habitats will help save these endangered animals. One local from Kangchenjunga said, “The awareness level has increased in our area,” adding, “Now even the herders have realized that they should save the snow leopards.”
LHASA, March 18 (Xinhua) — Farmers in Tibet have found a snow leopard at the northern foot of MountQomolangma, also known as Everest, said the local forestry department.
The leopard was spotted near CangmujianVillage, RongxiaTownship in Tingri, a county in southern Tibet early this month, said the Tingri County Forestry Department.
According to villagers, the big cat was an adult 120 cm long and about 50 cm tall, and it had a 120 cm tail. But the sex of the animal is unknown.
Villagers trapped the animal in a cave after it killed an adult cow, said the forestry department. The department and the Mount Qomolangma Administration sent workers to investigate. They effectively persuaded the villagers to free the leopard.
Snow leopards live in mountains and plateaus across China, Afghanistan, India and Nepal. The number of surviving wild snow leopards is estimated at 3,500, more than half of which live in the remote high mountains of northwest Xinjiang, Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan in China, said the International Snow Leopard Trust (ISLT).
The animal has rarely been seen in the wild recently and is worth a great deal to poachers.
According to Liu Wulin, a Tibet-based forestry expert, the last capture of a snow leopard, a female one aged five to six, took place in December 2007 in QijiaVillage in GongheCounty, Hainan Tibet Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai Province, northwest China.
