Snow Leopard Survival Strategy - Panthera

this area took live stock despite the availability of blue
sheep in relatively high numbers (Oli 1991)
Taxonomy:
The snow leopard (Uncia uncia) is a member of the
Felidae subfamily Pantherinae (Blomqvist 1978, Nowak
and Paradiso 1983). On the basis of morphology and
behavior it is placed alone in a separate genus (Pocock
1917, Peters 1980, Rieger 1980, Hemmer 1967, 1972).
The snow leopard’s vocal fold is less developed than in
the other pantherines, lacking a thick pad of fibro-elastic
tissue, so that it cannot make the low and intense «roars»
of which the other big cats are capable (Hemmer 1972,
Peters 1980, Hast 1989). Kitchener (1993, in litt) has
suggested that the snow leopard, for which two subspecies
have been described (Stroganov 1962) but are not
generally recognized (e.g., Hemmer 1972, Wildt et al.
1992), is a prime candidate for subspeciation because of
the insular and patchy nature of its high mountain habitat.
Similarly, Fox (1994) draws attention to the gap between
the main southern snow leopard population and the northern
population in Russia and Mongolia, and suggests that
the two populations may differ genetically. On the other
hand, instances of snow leopards migrating up to 600
km have been reported from the former USSR (Heptner
and Sludskii 1972, Koshkarev 1990). As in other Pantherinae,
the diploid chromosome number in snow leopards
is 38 and the fundamental number is 36. There are 17
metacentric and 2 acrocentric chromosomes (Soderlund
et al. 1980). The karyotypic banding pattern is almost
identical to that in other Pantherinae (Gripenberg et al.
1982). There is virtually no fossil record of snow leopard,
the only positive identifications being upper Pleistocene
remains from Altay caves (Hemmer 1972).
Historic Distribution:
The historical range of the snow leopard is restricted
to the mountains of Central Asia. With core areas in the
Altay, Tien Shan, Kun Lun, Pamir, Hindu Kush, Karakoram,
and Himalaya ranges. Its north to south distribution
occurs within the countries of the Soviet Union, Mongolia,
China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal and
Bhutan. Early reports of snow leopards from as far west
as Asia Minor and as far east as Sakhalin Island are apparently
incorrect (Rieger 1980).
Range Map
The United States Geological Survey (USGS)
in cooperation with the International Snow Leopard
Trust, produced a range-wide model of potential snow
leopard habitat and presented it at the 8th International
Snow Leopard Symposium in 1995. The map (Figure
1) is based on the Digital Chart of the World (DCW)
1:1,000,000 series, the digital equivalent of the United
States Defense Mapping Agencies Operational Navigation
Chart series. Using paper maps, polygons were
drawn around estimated elevation limits for snow leopard
range. Likewise the boundaries for protected areas were
drawn in. These polygons were digitized and combined
with the DCW country borders to create an initial range
map with permanent snow fields and water bodies excluded.
The resultant map of potential habitat was categorized
as “fair” for areas of slope less than 30 degrees or
within designated buffer limits of human habitation, and
as “good” for areas with greater than 30 degrees slope.
Standard GIS tools were used to extract potential habitat
tables for snow leopard range countries. Table I provides
estimates of total habitat, good habitat, fair habitat, and
the percent of habitat within protected areas.
The model suggested that there was more potential
snow leopard habitat than previously estimated, especially
in China, Afghanistan, Mongolia, and Russia. Yet
there were several limitations that had to be recognized
when interpreting the results of that mapping exercise.
Small map scales and hand drawn polygons of imprecise
protected area boundaries added a confounding factor
and served to limit accuracy. This model also used only
geographic habitat selection figures, omitting criteria
such as prey distribution, competition, grazing pressure,
and other important parameters. This model was a step in
an evolving process, and specialists must continue to correct
discrepancies and create more sophisticated models.
We present this map here as the best available product
to date, but in full recognition of its short-comings. The
SLSS offers a good opportunity to begin the process of
improving on the above model.
The total area of suitable habitat within the region
indicated by the range map is approximately 1,230,000
km 2 . The area of suitable snow leopard habitat for each
country in which it occurs has been calculated on the
basis of published estimates and range maps, and where
only general range descriptions are available, an assumption
of the leopard’s restriction to mountain ranges (Table
I). In Bhutan, regions above 3000 m were included as
suitable habitat, whereas in the Soviet Union all mountainous
regions within its reported range were considered
as suitable.
Much of the range-wide information on protected
areas (PAs) coverage is taken from Green (1988, 1992),
selected country reports (e.g., Singh et al. 1990), or from
unpublished sources (e.g., Nepal and Bhutan). Green
and Zhimbiev (1997) identified 109 protected areas covering
an area of 276,123 km 2 , comprising of those places
known to have snow leopards or as lying within potential
snow leopard habitat. According to the information
set contained in SLIMS (Jackson 1992), the number of
protected areas is more like 120, but a vast majority are
far too small to harbor a significant number of snow
leopards. For example, of 102 protected areas, only
25% exceeded 1,000 km 2 in size, while 55% covered
an area of 500 km 2 or less (Nowell and Jackson 1996).
Another point of note is that many PAs contain relatively
high percentages of non-habitat in the form of rock and
permanent ice (WWF-US in prep.), so that size alone can
be rather misleading.
14 | SNOW LEOPARD SURVIVAL STRATEGY