A 2024 first-of-its-kind survey estimated that India has only 718 snow leopards. The snow leopard is classified as 'vulnerable' by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
But here are eight conservationists changing this reality.
The executive director of Snow Leopard Trust, Charu is considered by many as the world’s foremost expert on snow leopard conservation.
He created India’s first community-managed livestock insurance programme in 2002.
The late Rinchen Wangchuk was a wildlife researcher from Ladakh and founder of the Snow Leopard Conservancy-India Trust (SLC-IT).
He understood the need to reconcile snow leopard conservation with the needs of the local communities.
This realisation was shared by his successor (current director of SLC-IT) Dr Tsewang Namgail and another snow leopard naturalist Jigmet Dadul
The three assisted local farmers to build structures to protect their livestock and established a community-controlled livestock insurance programme.
They also introduced eco-tourism with conservation-linked homestays located in critical snow leopard habitats
Khenrab Phuntsog is an award-winning snow leopard conservationist with over two decades of experience as a Wildlife Guard in Hemis National Park, Ladakh.
Since joining the Wildlife Protection Department in 2000, he has rescued about 50 snow leopards trapped in human habitations and released them back into the wild.
Karma Sonam — a field manager with the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) in Ladakh — has dedicated his life to reducing human-wildlife conflict.
He has helped create grazing-free reserves for herbivores like the Tibetan gazelle (that are prey for snow leopards) and also converted Shandongs (traditional wolf traps) into holy Buddhist sites.
The latter allows trapped animals to escape back into the wild.
Koustubh Sharma is the Conservation Science Director at Snow Leopard Trust. He has dedicated a great deal of time to the Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection Programme.
The programme “brings together governments from 12 snow leopard range countries, policymakers, and conservationists toward securing the future of snow leopards and their mountains”.
The livestock belonging to the Gaddi community — a community of migratory shepherds — and locals in the Lahaul area were threatened by snow leopards.
These people would not apply for compensation even when they lost livestock because their alpine meadows were 30 to 35 kilometres from the nearest town.
“So we got together with the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) and made a manual with all the procedures to follow if one were to lose any livestock,” Shiv shares.