Program:
Reducing livestock depredation
- Budget:
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$125,000
- Category:
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Animal-Related
- Population Served:
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Poor/Economically Disadvantaged, Indigent, General
Program Description:
Corral predator-proofing
Mountain communities in the snow leopards’ range countries face many challenges. Annual income of most households averages about $300. Often a home’s only electricity comes from a solar panel on the roof that powers one light bulb in the cooking space. The nearest shops may be fifty miles away; there are few roads and few family-owned vehicles. Villagers depend upon their livestock for milk, meat, wool, transportation of goods, and fertilizer for their food crops (grain, vegetables and fruit-trees). Livestock may thus be seen as the family’s “bank account.”
Without sufficient means to buy hardware or roofing materials, families keep their sheep and goats in poorly constructed, open pens at night. These are easy for a snow leopard to jump into, but prevent livestock from escaping, so they mill around in panic. The snow leopard’s hunting instinct is repeatedly triggered by such movement, and the cat is able to attack until all livestock are either dead or injured. Naturally such events are catastrophic if they result in the household losing its entire flock. Who can blame them for wanting to kill snow leopards?
Thus, SLC places priority on helping shepherds to predator-proof their night-time livestock enclosures. We provide wire mesh for the roof, and other building materials unavailable locally or too expensive for the villager to buy. The community does the work of improving the corrals so that snow leopards cannot break in. Everyone signs an agreement promising not to harm snow leopard or other wildlife.
Improving animal husbandry practices
Herders often blame predators for lost livestock without adequately accounting for disease and accidents. Many have abandoned proven traditional shepherding practices, such as vigilant guarding, and let their stock forage in areas offering good stalking cover for snow leopards. As livestock represents much of the wealth of local communities, the SLC supports programs for healthy, well-protected and well-managed herds, which in turn lead to improved pastures. Improved pastures also support wild ungulates and the snow leopards that feed on them.
Outcomes
*Livestock depredation has not occured in any of the predator-proofed corrals.
*For every livestock pen made snow leopard-proof as many as
five of these rare cats are kept out of trouble and, more importantly,
kept alive.
*The many Buddhist communities with whom we have collaborated to predator-proof corrals are happy not to have to kill a snow leopard that is preying on livestock.
*Herders no longer have to spend cold nights far from home sleeping in the pastures beside open livestock pens. They can go home to their families. *97% participation in livestock management activities in Pakistan, with reduced predation (17 livestock lost in 2009, compared to 105 in 2008 and 180 in 2007).
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Program:
Raising Environmental Awareness
- Budget:
-
$30,000
- Category:
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Education
- Population Served:
-
Poor/Economically Disadvantaged, Indigent, General
Program Description:
Increasing environmental awareness and understanding of the fragile mountain ecosystem among range country rural communities and decision-makers is an important program objective.
The workshops that accompany each of SLC’s programs include activities aimed at instilling a greater understanding of environmental issues on the part of local communities. In addition, the SLC supports school-based environmental education in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Russia.
Our range country educational activities are centered on providing simple teaching tools appropriate for remote rural areas where electricity is the exception and schools function under bare-bones conditions. Interactive teaching and learning, including games, field trips and overnight nature camps are an important part of these programs, where lecturing has been the traditional method of teaching, and where children have learned mainly by memorization. We work through a network of local teachers, teacher-trainers and nonprofit organizations, to develop and conduct classroom and after-school activities using the principles of Appreciative Participatory Planning and Action.
Outcomes
*Our Ladakh, Northern India program is endorsed by the Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister and HH Dalai Lama.
*The Jammu & Kashmir Education Minister requested copies of resource kits for teachers for all district schools.
*Ladakh education staff was requested to share and disseminate the program in Spiti Valley, Himachal Pradesh State.
*In remote far western Nepal, students in our education program placed second in a nationwide environmental conservation contest sponsored by WWF-Nepal
* Our local coordinator for western Nepal received the 2006 Audubon of the Northwoods Jane Spence/Joe White Alumni Award.
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Program:
Improving Local Herders’ Livelihoods
- Budget:
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$60,000
- Category:
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Community Development
- Population Served:
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Poor/Economically Disadvantaged, Indigent, General
Program Description:
We strive to link snow leopard and biodiversity conservation with initiatives aimed at improving household incomes in environmentally friendly, socially responsible and economically viable ways.
One example is The Traditional Himalayan Homestay program. The program started in Ladakh, Northern India in 2003, with funding from UNESCO, and is managed by local village women’s groups. Visitors pay the operator $12-15 per night for a simply furnished room with three traditional meals. SLC trains service providers in such skills as cooking, hygiene and host services. In return, the service providers agree to protect wildlife, maintain traditional cultural values and manage natural resources sustainably. Homestays are basically “bed and breakfasts” primarily targeting tourists trekking through the countryside. We work with local and international travel agents operating special treks with a portion of the proceeds supporting local conservation and education initiatives.
This program has demonstrated many benefits, including:
Making a positive contribution to conservation of biodiversity: Building upon the positive attitudinal changes towards wildlife and linkages with tourism, the SLC encouraged the creation of Community Conservation Funds into which a portion of Homestay revenues are deposited. Communities decide how to use the money. These funds have helped pay for locally established native tree plantations and fuel-saving solar water heaters which lessen pressure on scarce resources. Local people have also set aside certain pastures exclusively for the snow leopard’s natural prey of native ungulates.
Minimizing negative social and cultural impacts of tourism and preserving local culture: Participation from the onset by villagers, local operators, NGOs and visitors has resulted in Homestays that are culturally and socially sensitive. Hosts developed Codes of Conduct for both hosts and visitors, addressing issues of privacy and appropriate behavior. All parties agreed to monitor the program through feedback forms, regular meetings, and periodic visits by SLC. Village-based employment and Community Conservation Funds support cultural heritage conservation (keeping young people in the village instead of migrating to the cities, and supporting activities such as clean ups and monument restoration).
Providing valuable supplemental income: More than 100 host families in 21 communities currently participate in the program. Homestay households earn up to $400 per season. Women—the majority of operators—have invested in educating their children, and have acquired language, natural history and other skills normally beyond their reach. Spinoffs include trained village nature guides, trailside cafés, solar showers, and handicraft sales.
Reducing the environmental impact of tourism: Homestay hosts have reduced the use, sales, and discarding of packaged items, e.g. selling solar boiled water instead of mineral water in plastic bottles. They have dry-composting toilets that save water and provide fertilizer. SLC provided training to village-based nature guides to manage visitor movements and monitor wildlife. Visitors are educated about the environment and the capacity of hosts, café operators and guides is built through hands-on activity. Villager contributions to the Community Conservation Fund may be matched by SLC.
Outcomes*Traditional Himalayan Homestays received Travel+Leisure magazine’s 2005 Global Vision Award for Community Outreach, and an award from the World Travel Market. These, and more recent awards and publicity, recognize innovative projects and organizations defending the historical, cultural, and ecological integrity of the traveler’s world, and that make a positive contribution to conservation and the economies of local communities.
*Trekkers and other visitors are increasingly observing wild snow leopards in Ladakh.
*Local people are changing their attitude to snow leopards, from seeing them as pests to realizing that they are assets. Herders work hard when groups are visiting, especially in winter, to help them see this rare creature.
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Program:
Designing Conservation Measures based on Sound Conservation Science
- Budget:
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$95,000
- Category:
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Animal-Related
- Population Served:
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General Public/Unspecified
Program Description:
The Snow Leopard Conservancy conducts applied research and works in close partnership with scientists from national and international universities, scientific institutions and NGOs. We support non-invasive baseline surveys of snow leopards, their prey and habitat, seeking to blend hard scientific information with indigenous knowledge and involving local people and communities in the monitoring of wildlife and its habitat.
Conservationists are most successful in protecting an endangered species when they have reliable information on where the animal occurs, which areas support the highest densities of predators or prey, and which populations are most at risk from poaching, habitat change or other factors. Well-designed status and distribution surveys ensure that key areas are targeted, and help in designing or evaluating cost-effective programs. Monitoring plays a vital role in verifying changes to the snow leopard population after a conservation program has been initiated. Increased snow leopard or prey numbers and a more accepting local human population are important indicators that the program is achieving its intended goal and objectives.
Snow leopards are notoriously difficult to detect due to their excellent camouflage, cryptic behavior, sparse distribution and rugged habitat. However, they leave evidence of their presence in the form of pugmarks, scrapes (scuffing the ground with their back feet), feces, scent-sprays, claw-rakes and remains of kills. Telemetry studies have revealed that male and female home ranges overlap to varying degrees, and that males appear to be less territorial than jaguars or tigers. Commonly-used core areas intersect the most favorable local topography, habitat and prey base. Core areas may be marked significantly more frequently than non-core sites, suggesting that such marking may help space individuals and thereby facilitate more efficient use of sparse resources. Marking frequency varies seasonally, reaching peak intensities during the narrow mating season which falls between January and late March each year.
Currently, five general approaches are used for assessing populations:
*Sign transects: Monitoring the sign left along the cats’ travel routes.
* Occupancy Modeling: A method using sign counts and mathematics to determine the presence or absence of snow leopards in a particular area.
* Camera-trapping: Infrared motion-sensing cameras are strategically deployed along travel routes used by snow leopards occupying the survey area. The images captured are analyzed and the number of individual snow leopards determined from their unique pelage spot patterns.
* Fecal or Scat Genotyping: Biologists collect feces deposited by snow leopards. In the lab the mitochondrial DNA is extracted, sequenced and interpreted to determine population numbers and structure.
* Radio-tracking: Snow leopards are fitted with radio-collars so that they can be tracked to yield information on habitat use, movement patterns, home range utilization, and social interactions.
Narrowing Down How Best to Use Research Dollars for Conservation
In 2008, we published a groundbreaking paper in Animal Conservation, the journal of the Zoological Society of London, Population monitoring of snow leopards using non-invasive collection of scat samples: a pilot study. This was a collaboration between the SLC, Texas A&M University, the Chinese Academy of Forestry, the Mongolian Academy of Science, and George Mason University. The field team collected scats believed to be from snow leopards in northwestern India, central China and southern Mongolia. Up to 54% of scats were misidentified as snow leopard, but were actually red fox. The high rate of field misidentification suggests sign surveys incorporating scat likely overestimate snow leopard abundance. Findings highlight the efficacy of noninvasive genetic surveys for monitoring snow leopards. These methods enable large-scale noninvasive studies that will provide information critical for conservation of snow leopards.
Following on from that pilot study, in August, 2011 the Journal of Mammalogy—the flagship publication of the American Society of Mammalogists—publishished Comparison of noninvasive genetic and camera-trapping techniques for surveying snow leopards, by Jan E. Janecka, Bariushaa Munkhtsog, Rodney M. Jackson, Galsandorj Naranbaatar, David P. Mallon, And William J. Murphy.
This is the first in-depth comparison of the two most important non-invasive methods for monitoring wild snow leopards and estimating their population size. Working in the Gobi Desert, the team employed both camera-trapping and genetic analysis of scat. While both provided comparable estimates, we concluded that genetic surveys could be conducted with significantly less cost and effort than camera-trapping. Scat surveys also yield valuable DNA samples that can be used to examine landscape connectivity, relatedness, and how populations are connected.
How do Genetic Techniques save snow leopards? They greatly expand the information that we can obtain on elusive species like snow leopards. We estimated that the study area contained 16-19 snow leopards; but only by understanding the influence of animal husbandry, prey availability, and landscape connectivity on snow leopard distribution we can hope to implement effective conservation measures at the landscape level.
Next we will be applying genetic analysis techniques in partnership with local communities to determine which sites have the highest ratio of domestic livestock in snow leopard diet, and to identify hotspots to target for conservation action. The goal is to protect at-risk leopard populations and mitigate human-wildlife conflict while empowering local communities towards sustainable development.
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