Abstract: The Tost-Tosonbumba Mountains of South Gobi represent one of the most impressive habitats for the endangered snow leopard Panthera Uncia, supporting amongst the highest population density of this rare cat reported so far from across it's global range. A prestigious multi-institutional internal research collaboration was initiated in Tost-Tosonbumba in 2008 with the establishment of a sate of the art research station. Yet, lying outside any protected area, this important snow leopard population and its habitat face direct and urgent threats due to mining. Initiation of mining in the region would (i) severely impact an important snow leopard population and destroy much of its habitat, (ii) compromise the possibility of genetic exchange of snow leopards over a much larger landscape (iii) lay to waste ten years of effort with local communities that have involved improving livelihoods and seeking their co-operation in snow leopard conservation and (iv) squander the opportunity for Mongolia to continue a prestigious one of a kind, long-term international collaborative program on snow leopard research. It is critical that mining licenses in snow leopard habitats of the region be immediately revoked, and the local communities be supported in their efforts to develop the Tost-Tosonbumba Mountains into a local protected area.

Abstract: After 30 years of searching for the mysterious Beringian snow cat in vast space of Koryakia and Chukotka
one of the five cameras recorded finally this beast at night in September 2014. This is not so much a
sensation as a real scientific discovery, saying that the hearts of the snow leopard population resettlement are
not in 5000 km from the main range boundaries, but much closer. Where? � will show further studies.
In addition to the snow leopard in the North-Eastern Asia, it found two more endangered large
mammal species: the Amur tiger and the relict of the Ice Age � the Irkuyem-bear. Author has given these
animals his life and his article devoted to this topic.

Abstract: The Wakhan Corridor in northeast Afghanistan is an area known for relatively abundant wildlife and it appears to represent Afghanistan’s most important snow leopard landscape. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has been working in Wakhan since 2006. Recent camera trap surveys have documented the presence of snow leopards at 16 different locations in the landscape. These are the first camera trap records of snow leopards in Afghanistan. Threats to snow leopards in the region include the fur trade, retaliatory killing by shepherds and the capture of live animals for pets. WCS is developing an integrated management approach for this species, involving local governance, protection by a cadre of rangers, education, construction of predator-proof livestock corrals, a livestock insurance program, tourism and research activities. This management approach is expected to contribute significantly to the conservation of snow leopards and other wildlife species in the Wakhan.

Abstract: Visual attractiveness and rarity often results in large carnivores being adopted as flagship
species for stimulating conservation awareness. Their hunting behaviour and prey selection
can affect the population dynamics of their prey, which in turn affects the population dynamics
of these large carnivores. Therefore, our understanding of their trophic ecology and foraging
strategies is important for predicting their population dynamics and consequently for
developing effective conservation programs. Here we concentrate on an endangered species
of carnivores, the snow leopard, in the Himalayas. Most previous studies on snow leopard
diet lack information on prey availability and/or did not genetically check, whether the
identification of snow leopard scats is correct, as their scats are similar to those of other
carnivores. We studied the prey of snow leopard in three Himalayan regions in Nepal
(Sagarmatha National Park (SNP), Lower Mustang (LM) and Upper Manang (UM) in the
Annapurna Conservation Area, during winter and summer in 2014�2016. We collected 268
scats along 139.3 km linear transects, of which 122 were genetically confirmed to belong to
snow leopard. Their diet was identified by comparing hairs in scats with our reference collection
of the hairs of potential prey. We determined prey availability using 32�48 camera-traps
and 4,567 trap nights. In the SNP, the most frequent prey in snow leopard faeces was the
Himalayan tahr in both winter and summer. In LM and UM, its main prey was blue sheep in
winter, but yak and goat in summer. In terms of relative biomass consumed, yak was the
main prey everywhere in both seasons. Snow leopard preferred large prey and avoided
small prey in summer but not in winter, with regional differences. It preferred domestic to
wild prey only in winter, and in SNP. Unlike most other studies carried out in the same area,
our study uses genetic methods for identifying the source of the scat. Studies solely based
on visual identification of samples may be strongly biased. Diet studies based on frequency
of occurrence of prey tend to overestimate the importance of small prey, which may be consumed
more often, but contribute less energy than large prey. However, even assessments
based on prey biomass are unlikely to be accurate as we do not know whether the actual
size of the prey consumed corresponds to the average size used to calculate the biomass
eaten. For example, large adults may be too difficult to catch and therefore mostly young animals are consumed, whose weight is much lower. We show that snow leopard consumes
a diverse range of prey, which varies both regionally and seasonally. We conclude that in
order to conserve snow leopards it is also necessary to conserve its main wild species of
prey, which will reduce the incidence of losses of livestock.

Abstract: Accurate information about the diet of large carnivores that are elusive and inhabit inaccessible terrain, is required to properly design conservation strategies. Predation on livestock and retaliatory killing of predators have become serious issues throughout the range of the snow leopard. These techniques have inherent limitation in their ability to properly identify both snow leopard feces and prey taxa, To examine the frequency of livestock prey and and nearly-threatened argali in the diet of the snow leopard, we employed the recently developed DNA-based diet approach to study a snow leopard population located in the Tost Mountains, South Gobi, Mongolia. After DNA was extracted from the feces, a region of ~100 bp long from mitochondrial 12S rRNA gene was amplified, making use of universal primers for vertebrates and a blocking oligonucleotide specific to snow leopard DNA. The amplicons were then sequenced using a next-generation sequencing platform. We observed a total of five different prey items from 81 fecal samples. Siberian ibex predominated the diet (in 70.4% of the feces), followed by domestic goat (17.3%) and argali sheep (8.6%). The major part of the diet was comprised of large ungulates (in 98.8% of the feces) including wild ungulates (79%) and domestic livestock (19.7%). The findings of the present study will help to understand the feeding ecology of the snow leopard, as well as to address the conservation and management issues pertaining to this wild cat.