Abstract: Climate change is likely to affect the persistence of large, space-requiring species through habitat shifts,
loss, and fragmentation. Anthropogenic land and resource use changes related to climate change can also
impact the survival of wildlife. Thus, climate change has to be integrated into biodiversity conservation
plans. We developed a hybrid approach to climate-adaptive conservation landscape planning for snow
leopards in the Himalayan Mountains. We first mapped current snow leopard habitat using a mechanistic
approach that incorporated field-based data, and then combined it with a climate impact model using a
correlative approach. For the latter, we used statistical methods to test hypotheses about climatic drivers
of treeline in the Himalaya and its potential response to climate change under three IPCC greenhouse gas
emissions scenarios. We then assessed how change in treeline might affect the distribution of snow leopard
habitat. Results indicate that about 30% of snow leopard habitat in the Himalaya may be lost due to a
shifting treeline and consequent shrinking of the alpine zone, mostly along the southern edge of the range
and in river valleys. But, a considerable amount of snow leopard habitat and linkages are likely to remain
resilient to climate change, and these should be secured. This is because, as the area of snow leopard habitat
fragments and shrinks, threats such as livestock grazing, retaliatory killing, and medicinal plant collection
can intensify. We propose this approach for landscape conservation planning for other species
with extensive spatial requirements that can also be umbrella species for overall biodiversity.
 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Abstract: A total of 206 individual Blue sheep Pseudois nayaur were estimated in Barse and Phagune blocks of Dhorpatan Hunting Reserve (DHR) and population density was 1.8 Blue sheep/sq.km. There was not significant change in population density from last 4 decades. An average 7 animals/herd (SD-5.5) were classified from twenty nine herds, sheep per herds varying from 1 to 37. Blue sheep has classified into sex ratio on an average 75 male/100females was recorded in study area. The sex ratio was slightly lower but not significantly different from the previous study. Population of Blue sheep was seen stable or not decrease even there was high poaching pressure, the reason may be reducing the number of predators by poison and poaching which has
supported to increase blue sheep population. Because of reducing the predators Wolf Canis lupus, Wild boar population was increasing drastically in high rate and we can observed wild boar above the tree line of DHR. The frequency of occurrence of different prey species in scats of different predators shows that, excluding zero values, the frequencies of different prey species were no significantly different (ö2= 10.3, df = 49, p > 0.05). Most of the scats samples (74%) of Snow leopard, Wolf, Common Leopard, Red fox's cover one prey species while two and three species were present in 18% and 8%, respectively. Barking deer Muntiacus muntjak was the most frequent (18%) of total diet composition of common leopards. Pika Ochotona roylei was the most frequent (28%), and Blue sheep was in second position for diet of snow leopards which cover 21% of total diet composition. 13% of diet covered non-food item such as soil, stones, and vegetable. Pika was most frequent on Wolf and Red fox diet which covered 32% and 30% respectively. There was good positive relationship between the scat density and Blue sheep consumption rate, increasing the scat density, increasing the Blue sheep consumption rate. Blue sheep preference by different predators such as Snow leopard, Common leopard, Wolf and Red fox were 20%, 6%, 13% and 2% of total prey species respectively.