https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g05xg1qzeo
“In one of India's coldest and most remote regions, a group of women have taken
on an unlikely role: protecting one of Asia's most elusive predators, the snow
leopard.
Snow leopards are found in just 12 countries across Central and South Asia.
India is home to one of the world's largest populations, with a nationwide
survey in 2023 - the first comprehensive count ever carried out in the country
- estimating more than 700 animals.
One of the places they roam is around Kibber village in Himachal Pradesh
state's Spiti Valley, a stark, high-altitude cold desert along the Himalayan
belt. Here, snow leopards are often called the "ghosts of the mountains",
slipping silently across rocky slopes and rarely revealing themselves.
For generations, the animals were seen largely as a threat, for attacking
livestock. But attitudes in Kibber and neighbouring villages are beginning to
shift, as people increasingly recognise the snow leopard's role as a top
predator in the food chain and its importance in maintaining the region's
fragile mountain ecosystem.
Nearly a dozen local women are now working alongside the Himachal Pradesh
forest department and conservationists to track and protect the species,
playing a growing role in conservation efforts.
Locally, the snow leopard is known as Shen and the women call their group
"Shenmo". Trained to install and monitor camera traps, they handle devices
fitted with unique IDs and memory cards that automatically photograph snow
leopards as they pass.
"Earlier, men used to go and install the cameras and we kept wondering why
couldn't we do it too," says Lobzang Yangchen, a local coordinator working with
a small group supported by the non-profit Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF)
in collaboration with the forest department.
Yangchen was among the women who helped collect data for Himachal Pradesh's
snow leopard survey in 2024, which found that the state was home to 83 snow
leopards - up from 51 in 2021.”
Via Frederick Wilson II.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
