Spring Semester 2023

Snow leopard ecology in Bhutan
Dechen Lham

Snow leopard caught on a camera trap in Lingzhi range, Jigme Dorji National Park, 2015 © Department of Forests and Parks Services, Thimphu, Bhutan

The snow leopard Panthera uncia is one of world’s rarest cats, and conservation of its remnant populations is faced with multiple threats and challenges, including habitat fragmentation and degradation, declining prey base, retaliatory killing, illegal trade, weak policies, insufficient transboundary cooperation, and lack of scientific information. Globally, snow leopards are found only in 12 countries. Bhutan lies at the southern periphery of the species’ range and represents an important corridor between the Indian and Chinese populations. In Bhutan, very little is known about the snow leopard’s ecology, and basic information on distribution, abundance, diet, and degree of conflict with rural communities are lacking. In my PhD project, I used ecological tools such as camera trap surveys to study the snow leopard’s distribution, site use, and density, and scat analysis to investigate their feeding ecology. I also used social tools such as interview-based questionnaire survey to evaluate human acceptance of the species and assessed socio-ecological suitable snow leopard habitat in Bhutan.

___________________________________________________________________