India is home to 718 snow leopards, accounting for roughly 10-15% of the big cat’s global population. Conducted by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), the Snow Leopard Population Assessment in India (SPAI) Programme was carried out from 2019 to 2023 as part of the Population Assessment of the World’s Snow Leopards (PAWS), a global effort to determine the snow leopard’s numbers.

The survey covered approximately 120,000 sq kms of snow leopard habitat across the trans-Himalayan region. After camera traps identified 214 individual snow leopards, surveyors analysed leopard trails and other data to estimate the animal’s population at 718. Ladakh, with 477 individuals, is the leading snow leopard habitat in India, followed by Uttarakhand (124), Himachal Pradesh (51), Arunachal Pradesh (36), Sikkim (21), and Jammu and Kashmir (9).

The snow leopard is classified as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). In India, it is given the highest wildlife protection status. Its numbers in the wild face multiple threats, from habitat loss and poaching to infrastructure development.

Understanding the precise population of the snow leopard is important because of its role as the apex predator in the Himalayan ecosystem. Its population can indicate health of the ecosystem and help identify potential threats to its habitat, and shifts caused by climate change.

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On the Origin of Species

The reflection on the universe leads us to its amazing variety and harmony. There have been any number of efforts to find the truth about how it originated, and we have the Big Bang Theory now for almost a century, which at best, is an effort at explaining it and not an established fact. We have versions with metaphysical roots like the Hiranyagarbha (Golden Womb) Theory of Rigveda 10:121 and Purusha Suktam of Rigveda 10:90 or the Golden Egg Theory in several cultures. I am more familiar with the Judeo-Christian tradition (Torah and Bible) creation narrative which offers a very interesting story of the origin and diversification of the universe. The narrative apparently tries to establish the proven role of humans as stewards responsible for the upkeep of this diversity with the command to ‘till and keep’. As the planet faces unforeseen cataclysmic events in the form of cyclones, typhoons, tornados, blizzards, torrential floods, unprecedented snow, heat waves, increasing melting of the polar glaciers, and a resultant threat to the planet and its diverse dwellers, we are faced with five-fold challenges:

1. The planet and its dwellers, including humans, require biodiversity to live peacefully on it.  
2. The diversity is to be understood, assessed, appreciated and protected for the benefit of the present generation and for posterity. 
3. While humans have great power to mould and manipulate diverse beings on the planet, after the point of balance is lost, no human technology or effort can withhold the disasters that entail, which would affect humans as well, increasingly without distinction. 
4. Humans have the great potential to protect and recreate, and thus be truly co-creators and saviours with the Creator, to re-establish harmony by restoring biodiversity. 
5. In the context of the all-pervasive and almost unretractable human interface with every aspect of planetary diversity, the great human responsibility is to cautiously and discreetly attend to the diversity of the species and systems, in promoting as well as regulating them, reviewing every step taken in this realm. 

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VIVEK MENON, conservationist extraordinaire, Executive Director and CEO, Wildlife Trust of India, and Advisor, International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), lists 10 ways to save the largest land animal on planet earth.

Elephants have lived through millennia. They, and their now extinct proboscidean ancestors, have undergone droughts, famines, floods, earthquakes, prehistoric hunting, capture, enslavement, tribal conflict, modern slaughter and climate change. They have spanned the earth from the humid swamps of Al Fayyum in Egypt, through the deserts of the Sahel and Namib, through most of today’s temperate Europe and tropical Asia. They must, as survivors, know a million ways to defeat adversity. I have no access, however, to their wisdom and must confine myself to what we, another species with a very different kind of giant footprint, think they want, believe they must feel or know they need in order to survive. These imperatives are vast in scope and broad in concept but are the most critical. For if these are not done by us, then, three, or maybe four species of the world’s largest land creatures will no longer roam terra firma. For them, and for us, these are the top 10 actions we must take to protect the elephant.

Vast and connected homelands

It is only fair that the largest creatures on land require a wee bit of undisturbed space to park themselves and lead their incredibly complex social lives. Given their vast size, they need large quantities of food, and this inevitably translates to vast homelands. Luckily, they are not very selective in their forage and eat a number of plant species ranging from coarse grass to tender shoots. Their herds need to be mapped and adequate (this word is so geographically tied-down that I am not attempting an approximation) habitat must be protected as elephant reserves in order for them to roam. The elephant is not selfish in this want, for under the canopy of its mega charisma can live a million other beasts, large and small that share temporal and ecological niches with it. These vast savannah-woodlands could also be a nation’s natural tourism basket in which humanity can view these gentle giants and other creatures in the wild. These would also be, due to their size, the source of water, air and flora that have their own importance and implications for our natural world. Elephant homelands must necessarily be interconnected and to know why, we must move on to the next point.

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