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Arunachal Pradesh is now home to 36 snow leopards, a survey reveals

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Arunachal Pradesh is now home to 36 snow leopards, a survey reveals

Arunachal Pradesh is now home to 36 snow leopards, a survey reveals

The snow leopard (Panthera uncia) is the apex predator of the trans-Himalayas.

Itanagar:

Arunachal Pradesh is home to 36 snow leopards, according to a survey. The survey by the Department of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (DoEFCC), in collaboration with WWF-India, was released by Arunachal Pradesh Forest Minister Wangki Lowang on Tuesday.

The report provides the first scientifically robust estimates of snow leopard population and density in Arunachal Pradesh. The report provides a baseline of the status of snow leopards in Arunachal Pradesh to establish a long-term monitoring plan for the species.

The snow leopard (Panthera uncia) is the apex predator of the trans-Himalayas. It is also of great importance in the folklore, culture and local traditions of the Himalayan communities that share space with this species.

In 2008, the Government of India launched a flagship project called the Snow Leopard Project to conserve and safeguard the unique natural heritage of high-altitude wildlife populations and their habitats by promoting conservation through policy and participatory actions. This is a significant recognition that the unique cultures, traditions and livelihoods of mountain communities are closely linked to these landscapes and have a custodial role in conserving them.

Cat species have special meaning in most Arunachal Pradesh tribes as totemic symbols of spiritual significance, and most of these tribes often have the highest penalties (in kind) for violating the taboo of carnivore hunting The high altitude areas of Arunachal Pradesh have remained largely unexplored from a wildlife research and conservation perspective.

Solitary, almost silent and majestically beautiful, the snow leopard is one of the most enigmatic big cats. It is also one of the most elusive and endangered. Well adapted to life on the cold, rocky slopes of upper Asia, the snow leopard is a master of stealth and camouflage.

Very rarely seen by humans, it has come to be known as the “ghost of the mountains”. It has also become an icon for these stunning and critically important landscapes, which harbor a wide variety of unique high-altitude species and provide critical ecosystem services for hundreds of millions of people.

In India, the snow leopard is found in the Union territories of Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir, the states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh in the western Himalayas, and Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim in the eastern Himalayas.

Although Arunachal Pradesh has more than 15,000 square kilometers of potential snow leopard habitat, there is no rigorous assessment of snow leopard status so far.

The DoEFCC initiated a pioneering project to assess the snow leopard population by 2021, the report said.

He said the exercise was challenging given that the snow leopard’s habitat in Arunachal Pradesh, unlike most other places, is not easily accessible and the terrain is particularly difficult.

This is the first study to attempt a robust assessment of the state’s snow leopard population and to do so at a scale that covers all potential snow leopard habitat. The study used state-of-the-art simulations to develop a robust design for the state-level assessment, followed by a strenuous period of fieldwork in which front-line staff of the state forest department enthusiastically participated .

DoEFCC co-opted WWF-India as a technical knowledge partner to design the study, train the staff and execute the fieldwork.

As part of the fieldwork, the department used camera capture exercises from June 24 to December 9, 2021 covering 115 locations across the state.

They also conducted interviews with pastoralists and former hunters in 160 locations (hamlets, villages and grazing camps), to assess the presence, perceptions and threats to the species and its habitat at the state level.

More than 80% of those interviewed positively confirmed the presence of snow leopards in all the districts surveyed.

During fieldwork, eight individual snow leopards were detected in more than 40 snow leopard capture events in 16 different camera traps in Tawang and Bomdila divisions.

It identified that the most important threat to snow leopards is accidental killing/trapping in all surveyed districts except West Kameng and Tawang, where reprisal killing is the main threat, followed by killing/trapping accidental

Large-scale infrastructure development and loose dogs were also identified as seriously threatening wildlife in the high-altitude areas of West Kameng and Tawang districts.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)

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