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Urgent inter­na­tional action must be taken in the face of cli­mate change to save the snow leop­ard and con­serve its frag­ile moun­tain habi­tats that pro­vide water to hun­dreds of mil­lions of peo­ple across Asia, accord­ing to a new WWF report.

Launched on Inter­na­tional Snow Leop­ard Day, Frag­ile Con­nec­tions: Snow leop­ards, peo­ple, water and the global cli­mate, reveals that more than a third of snow leop­ard habi­tat could be ren­dered unsuit­able for the endan­gered big cats if cli­mate change is not checked. Warmer tem­per­a­tures could see the tree line shift­ing up the moun­tains and farm­ers plant­ing crops and graz­ing live­stock at higher alti­tudes, squeez­ing the remain­ing snow leop­ards into smaller pockets.

It is not just snow leop­ards that are at risk since their high-​altitude habi­tat spans many of Asia’s major water­sheds. The WWF report high­lights that over 330 mil­lion peo­ple live within 10km of rivers orig­i­nat­ing in snow leop­ard ter­ri­tory and directly depend on them for their daily water sup­plies. Cli­mate change could dras­ti­cally alter the flow of water down from the moun­tains, threat­en­ing the liveli­hoods of vast num­bers of peo­ple across the continent.

There could be as few as 4,000 snow leop­ards left in Cen­tral Asia’s high moun­tains — and their num­bers are con­tin­u­ing to fall. Increased habi­tat loss and degra­da­tion, poach­ing and con­flict with com­mu­ni­ties have con­tributed to a 20 per cent decline in the pop­u­la­tion in the past 16 years and left the species hang­ing on in many places. Unchecked, cli­mate change will exac­er­bate these threats and could push the species over the edge.

Build­ing on WWF’s long his­tory in snow leop­ard con­ser­va­tion, the organization’s new strat­egy will focus on areas where WWF believes it can add most value to global efforts to con­serve the species and pro­tect people’s liveli­hoods, includ­ing mit­i­gat­ing the threat from cli­mate change, reduc­ing con­flict with com­mu­ni­ties, and tack­ling poach­ing and traf­fick­ing of snow leop­ard products.

“Cli­mate change is a major risk, but we also need to con­cen­trate on other fac­tors. Snow leop­ards won’t sur­vive for long unless we tackle cli­mate change along­side other threats such as poach­ing, retal­ia­tory killings by herders, declin­ing prey species and poorly planned devel­op­ment,” said Sami Tornikoski, Leader WWF Liv­ing Himalayas Ini­tia­tive. “India, Nepal and Bhutan have proven that it’s pos­si­ble to increase the num­ber of iconic species like tigers and rhi­nos. Together gov­ern­ments, con­ser­va­tion­ists and com­mu­ni­ties can achieve sim­i­lar suc­cesses with snow leop­ards and drag them back from the brink,” added Tornikoski.

A stun­ning snow leop­ard mother with her two cubs in the Himalayas:

As part of its snow leop­ard strat­egy, WWF will con­tinue to fund vital research, includ­ing the use of cam­era traps and satel­lite col­lar­ing, to col­lect more data on the elu­sive big cat. This approach assumes greater promi­nence after the Frag­ile Con­nec­tions report revealed that less than 14 per cent of snow leop­ard habi­tat has ever been cov­ered by either research or con­ser­va­tion activ­i­ties. “There are gap­ing holes in our knowl­edge of snow leop­ards — from their pop­u­la­tions to their mat­ing and feed­ing behav­iour — and their habi­tats. These gaps must be filled so that we have the data to develop more effec­tive con­ser­va­tion strate­gies,” said Sharma.

But time is run­ning out. In 2013, the twelve snow leop­ard range states signed up to the ambi­tious Global Snow Leop­ard and Ecosys­tem Pro­tec­tion Pro­gram in Bishkek. The land­mark agree­ment sig­nalled an unprece­dented level of com­mit­ment to con­serve the snow leop­ard as well as a new era of col­lab­o­ra­tion between gov­ern­ments, inter­na­tional orga­ni­za­tions and civil soci­ety groups.

If you can’t help your­self you can donate to sup­port WWF try­ing to save the snow leop­ard from going extinct.

(Source: WWF news release, 22.10.2015)