A population of snow leopards has been found high in the mountains of Afghanistan, the World Conservation Society announced yesterday. The WCS was able to set up hidden cameras to capture footage of the elusive big cats.
Finding such a healthy population of the creatures is exciting, since snow leopards are the most endangered species of big cat. In the last sixteen years, it is estimated that the species declined by around twenty percent. There are only somewhere between 4,500 to 7,500 snow leopards left in the wild.
As Peter Zahler, deputy director for Asia Programs at the WCS, explained, “This is a wonderful discovery; it shows that there is real hope for snow leopards in Afghanistan.”
The cats are sometimes poached for their pelts or killed by shepherds protecting their sheep. They are also losing their natural habitat as the human population grows.
The WCS set up hidden cameras in the Wakhan Corridor, a narrow strip of land on the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border. They captured shots of the leopards in sixteen locations around the area.
This is the first time this technology has been used to capture footage of snow leopards in the area.