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Snow Leopard Program To Air on BBC 2, January 4th

Snow leopard: Beyond the myth
Fri 4 Jan 8.00pm BBC Two
and Sun 6 Jan

In 2004 a team from the BBC’s Planet Earth filmed intimate images of a snow leopard, high in the mountains of northern Pakistan. The experience marked the beginning of a love affair with the snow leopard for Nisar Malik, a Pakistani journalist more at home covering the conflicts in Afghanistan than tracking wildlife.
Now he’s back, along with cameraman Mark Smith, to spend 18 months following this most enigmatic of animals. Their combined expertise allows them to gain unique insight into the day to day life of a female snow leopard. But as they build a valuable visual record Nisar and Mark are also drawn into the struggle to protect her. Set in the wilds of the Hindu Kush, this film profiles a much misunderstood part of the world, going beyond the myth to tell the snow leopard’s real story.

Nepal Safeguards Four Sacred Himalayan Lakes, some in snow leopard range area

Source: Environmental News Service

KATHMANDU, Nepal, December 24, 2007 (ENS) – To commemorate the Ghunsa tragedy, in which the lives of 24 conservationists from the Nepalese government and WWF were lost in a helicopter crash, the government of Nepal has announced the designation of four new high altitude Wetlands of International Importance.

The helicopter went down on September 23, 2006 in Ghunsa, Nepal. WWF lost seven colleagues – Chandra Gurung, Mingma Norbu Sherpa, Harka Gurung, Yeshi Lama, Jill Bowling Schlaepfer, Jennifer Headley and Matthew Preece – in the crash.

The country lost its minister of state for forests and soil conservation, the secretary of that ministry, the director general of national parks and wildlife conservation, the director general of forests, several of its most distinguished defenders of natural resources and overseas specialists who were champions for conservation in Nepal.

They were returning from a trip to Ghunsa, in the mountains of eastern Nepal where they had participated in a ceremony in which the government of Nepal handed over to local communities responsibility for managing the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area, a place known for its beauty, biodiversity and rich cultural heritage.
Continue reading “Nepal Safeguards Four Sacred Himalayan Lakes, some in snow leopard range area”

Man-animal conflict flares up in Poonch, India

Source: merinews.com

October 30, 2007- WITH MILITANCY on the wane, though temporarily, the frontier district of Poonch is caught up in different kind of violence. Man-animal conflict is taking dangerous turns.

According to the Forest and Wildlife officials, irate residents of a Poonch village axed a female bear and her two cubs to death after they attacked some boys in the area.

The bears strayed into Bedar village in Sabzian area of the district and mauled some boys after which angry locals attacked them, officials stated. The villagers carrying torches attacked the female bear and her cubs with axes.

Earlier, the villagers had killed three wild bears in same area. A team of forest officials recovered the bodies of the three beasts, the next day. One of them was full grown female while two others were young ones – one male and the other female.

Continue reading “Man-animal conflict flares up in Poonch, India”

Wild snow leopard captured after killing 50 sheep

A wild snow leopard that killed 50 sheep has been captured and put in a zoo in northwest China’s Qinghai Province.

The big cat haunted the Qijia village, Gonghe county of the province, and attacked the sheep before angry villagers finally decided to hunt it.

They chased the leopard on motorcycles and roped the beast after lengthy fight.

When villagers were told that the wild snow leopard they had snared was under first class protection along with the panda, they decided to hand it to the Xining Zoo in the capital city of the province rather than kill it.

“The animal, aged five or six, was caught alive by the villagers only because it had been without food for several days and was weak,” said Xu Shuren, head of the zoo and expert on wild animal protection.

There are believed to be between 5,000 and 7,500 snow leopards left in the wild and around 500 in captivity, mainly in Asia.

Qinghai had an estimated 900 to 1,200 wild snow leopards, Xu said.

The demand for snow leopard pelts in some countries had led to a great drop their numbers.

(Xinhua News Agency December 13, 2007)

Santa Barbara Zoo’s Snow Leopard Festival a Success

Source: The Santa Barbara Independent

December 6, 2007- Snow in Santa Barbara? Not likely. Today, however, thousands of people flocked to the Santa Barbara Zoo to take a look at animals and children frolicking in more that 40 tons of snow. It was all part of the Snow Leopard Festival, held to raise money for the critically endangered Snow Leopards. Hailing from the cold climes of the Russo-Chinese border, the two Amur Leopards, who also reside in the zoo, benefited from the snow as well.

Brought in by semi truck, the snow arrived before 5 a.m., and was met by zoo keepers and staffers who helped unload the delivery into animal cages and at the hilltop park at the zoo’s center. Staff even constructed two small sledding hills in the park, which, by 10 a.m., were packed with enthusiastic kids. Animals could be seen romping in the snow as well — albeit within their enclosures — with snow leopards rolling playfully in it, and Asian Elephants forming and tossing snowballs with their dexterous trunks.

The snow attracted more than the usual number of zoo visitors for a Sunday afternoon, with the official count being upwards of 4,000 guests. Dean Noble, the Zoo’s director of marketing, said that the money raised by admission fees will benefit the Snow Leopard Trust, which has worked since 1981 to help protect snow leopards and their central Asian habitat. Heavily involved in animal conversation efforts, the Santa Barbara Zoo is a member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), which ensures that species — particularly endangered ones — get the space and habitat they need in captivity. “Zoos used to be for entertainment. Now they’ve become modern arcs,” said Noble.

Click to enlarge photo

Photo: Paul Wellman

Continue reading “Santa Barbara Zoo’s Snow Leopard Festival a Success”

SLN Member George Schaller Named Time Magazing “Hero of the Planet”

**NEWS RELEASE** CONTACT: STEPHEN SAUTNER: (1-718-220-3682; ssautner@wcs.org) JOHN DELANEY: (1-718-220-3275; jdelaney@wcs.org)

Wildlife Conservation Society’s George Schaller Named “Hero of the Planet” by Time Magazine

NOVEMBER 13, 2007 – Renowned conservationist Dr. George Schaller of the Wildlife Conservation Society was recently named by Time Magazine as one of 60 “Heroes of the Planet.”  He joins an elite group of environmental champions, including former Vice President Al Gore and former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev.

Time’s editor’s honored Dr. Schaller for his five-plus decades of work to protect some of the world’s most beloved wildlife, including pandas, tigers, gorillas, lions and many other species.  He is the Vice President of Science and Exploration for the Wildlife Conservation Society, the parent organization of the Bronx Zoo.

Dr. Schaller began his career in conservation in the mid 1950s in Alaska, culminating in wildlife surveys that led to the creation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  From there, he initiated the first-ever biological studies of mountain gorillas, paving the way for Dian Fossey’s crusade to protect these gentle giants.  Then Dr. Schaller went onto to conduct seminal wildlife studies of tigers in India, lions in the Serengeti, pandas in China, and snow leopards in Tibet.  He helped establish one of the world’s largest protected areas – the 115,000 square-mile Chang Tang Reserve in Tibet, created in 1993.

In recent years, Dr. Schaller has worked in the rugged trans-boundary region shared by Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and China.  There, he hopes to establish a new protected area to safeguard the spectacular and highly endangered Marco Polo sheep.

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The Wildlife Conservation Society – Since 1895, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has worked to save wildlife and wild lands around the globe. Today WCS has field staff at work in over 60 nations, protecting many of the last wild places left on our planet. To bring the mission home, the Bronx Zoo based WCS is distinguished as the only global conservation organization that also operates the world’s largest system of urban wildlife parks, educating more than 4 million zoo and aquarium visitors each year about the importance of wildlife conservation.

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Kim Murray Berger, Ph.D.
Wildlife Ecologist
Northern Rockies Field Office
Wildlife Conservation Society
205 Natural Sciences Bldg.
University of Montana
Missoula, MT  59812

tel: 406-549-8866
mobile: 208-351-2431
email: kberger@wcs.org

Police Crack Down on Illegal Animal Trade in London

Operation Charm, an effort to target the illegal trade in traditional Chinese medicines that contain ingredients derived from endangered species, is seeing results in London. Since its launch 10 years ago, it has seized more than 30,000 products that incorporate endangered animal parts. The Chinese population in London is supportive of this campaign and condemns the use of endangered species in medicines.

Earlier this month, a rare fur dealer in Camden Town, an area of North London, was found selling coats made from tiger, leopard, and snow leopard furs. He was taken into custody and released on bail.

For more information on the raid in Camden, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/6112688.stm

For more information on Operation Charm, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6155244.stm and http://www.operationcharm.org/