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Our long-term snow leopard study in Mongolia is a joint project of the Snow Leopard Trust, Panthera, and the Snow Leopard Conservation Fund and is in collaboration with Mongolia Ministry of Nature, Environment and Tourism and Mongolia Academy of Sciences. (more information can be found at www.snowleopard.org and www.panthera.org ). Recent Cat Activities We have some interesting information about Khavar, a male in our study. In the latter half of February, Khavar and the young female, Anu, appear to have spent time together, perhaps even sharing a meal together before they parted ways. In early March, Khavar’s collar indicated that he was staying in one place for a long period of time. It appeared that he may have made a kill, but after several days, Sumbee, our Camp Manager and Research Assistant, followed the signal and found Khavar’s collar. Sumbee had difficulty getting a collar signal, but finally located the damaged collar on the ground in the valley about 20km south of base camp. At this point, it is unclear if the damage to the collar was caused during hunting, from another snow leopard encounter, or for other reasons. Sumbee did not observe any signs of human activity where the collar was located. The collar was still fastened, and the area around the collar had hair, scrapes, scat, and some blood. As this was an unexpected discovery, we were unable to collect blood samples. As Orjan reaches the field in a couple of weeks, he will go back to the site, try to interpret the field situation as well as collect dried blood samples from the ground. That will enable us to ascertain through molecular genetics, the source of the blood and whether it belongs to a prey animal or a cat. We will be sure to update you with what our findings. Aztai’s collar indicates that he was one busy cat this last month. He patrolled his home range and also made a few short explorations to the north. We observed several location data that indicate possible meetings between Aztai and Lasya this month and that they were very close together (if not actually together) for several days during the last week of February. Lasya wandered the entire study area over the past few months, and recently entered the area we refer to as Khashaa’s home range. Some overlap in uplinks indicates that Khashaa and Lasya may have had some brief encounters as well. Around mid March, Aztai’s movement patterns suggest he may have been following Khashaa. We are curious to know if they spent time together. Around the same point in time, we observed M9 briefly separate from Khashaa by about 2 km for what may be the first time. It will be interesting to see if this is the beginning of dispersal for M9 and how often he makes these little separations from his mom. Since mid-March, he has made several more little excursions away from Khashaa, though he has never been away for more than 10 hours that we have recorded. We have previously been able to follow a young female dispersing from her mother when Zaraa left Tenger but male dispersal patterns have yet to be observed. Update from the Field March 2012 M9 Lasya Aztai Khashaa Anu Snow leopards are currently wearing GPS radio collars 5 Pg. 1 Map continued on Page 2. Following the Cats - Long-Term Ecological Study

5 wearing GPS radio collars Snow leopards are currently ......Our long-term snow leopard study in Mongolia is a joint project of the Snow Leopard Trust, Panthera, and the Snow Leopard

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Page 1: 5 wearing GPS radio collars Snow leopards are currently ......Our long-term snow leopard study in Mongolia is a joint project of the Snow Leopard Trust, Panthera, and the Snow Leopard

Our long-term snow leopard study in Mongolia is a joint project of the Snow Leopard Trust, Panthera, and the Snow Leopard Conservation Fund and is in collaboration with Mongolia Ministry of Nature, Environment and Tourism and Mongolia Academy of Sciences. (more information can be found at www.snowleopard.org and www.panthera.org).

Recent Cat Activities We have some interesting information about Khavar, a male in our study. In the latter half of February, Khavar and the young female, Anu, appear to have spent time together, perhaps even sharing a meal together before they parted ways. In early March, Khavar’s collar indicated that he was staying in one place for a long period of time. It appeared that he may have made a kill, but after several days, Sumbee, our Camp Manager and Research Assistant, followed the signal and found Khavar’s collar. Sumbee had difficulty getting a collar signal, but finally located the damaged collar on the ground in the valley about 20km south of base camp. At this point, it is unclear if the damage to the collar was caused during hunting, from another snow leopard encounter, or for other reasons. Sumbee did not observe any signs of human activity where the collar was located. The collar was still fastened, and the area around the collar had hair, scrapes, scat, and some blood. As this was an unexpected discovery, we were unable to collect blood samples. As Orjan reaches the field in a couple of weeks, he will go back to the site, try to interpret the field situation as well as collect dried blood samples from the ground. That will enable us to ascertain through molecular genetics, the source of the blood and whether it belongs to a prey animal or a cat. We will be sure to update you with what our findings. Aztai’s collar indicates that he was one busy cat this last month. He patrolled his home range and also made a few short explorations to the north. We observed several location data that indicate possible meetings between Aztai and Lasya this month and that they were very close together (if not actually together) for several days during the last week of February. Lasya wandered the entire study area over the past few months, and recently entered the area we refer to as Khashaa’s home range. Some overlap in uplinks indicates that Khashaa and Lasya may have had some brief encounters as well. Around mid March, Aztai’s movement patterns suggest he may have been following Khashaa. We are curious to know if they spent time together. Around the same point in time, we observed M9 briefly separate from Khashaa by about 2 km for what may be the first time. It will be interesting to see if this is the beginning of dispersal for M9 and how often he makes these little separations from his mom. Since mid-March, he has made several more little excursions away from Khashaa, though he has never been away for more than 10 hours that we have recorded. We have previously been able to follow a young female dispersing from her mother when Zaraa left Tenger but male dispersal patterns have yet to be observed.

Update from the Field March 2012

M9

Lasya

Aztai

Khashaa

Anu

Snow leopards are currently wearing GPS radio collars 5

Pg. 1

Map continued on Page 2.

Following the Cats - Long-Term Ecological Study

Page 2: 5 wearing GPS radio collars Snow leopards are currently ......Our long-term snow leopard study in Mongolia is a joint project of the Snow Leopard Trust, Panthera, and the Snow Leopard

MONGOLIA: One part sea buckthorn two parts onion peel—natural dye training yields results In Mongolia, progress on the development of the official rules and regulations for the Locally Protected Area (LPA) in Tost is in full swing. While the LPA has been finalized with the help of local communities, we now need to submit it to the Soum Central Governor. A Local Protected Area Management Planning information flier was prepared and distributed to the local communities to inform them about the protected area, the development of a management plan and the important role that the community members all play in this planning stage for the LPA. The community is playing a lead role in the development of this plan and will help make decisions on not only the rules and regulations, but how these will be enforced, what partnerships will help make it most effective, and what staff will need to be in place.

Snow Leopard Enterprises (SLE) has been a highly successful and favored program in Mongolia for nearly two decades. To maintain people’s interest and excitement about the program, as well as to make it enriching, we organized a ‘natural dye’ competition among the SLE participants. The objective was to develop and hone their skills in making natural dyes and to learn from each other since it is often expensive and complicated to import natural dyes from the US. We learned a great deal from the local knowledge, yet again proving the importance of our collective wisdom. Onion peels, lichen, stinging nettle, wood bark, berries, sea buckthorn, and beets were some of the raw materials that participants used to make natural dyes. These new methods and ‘recipes’ for making natural dyes from plants and herbs have already been disseminated to other members of the communities across the country through local newspapers and our regular newsletter.

Update from the Field

Following the Cats - Long-Term Ecological Study

Movement patterns of the 6 cats leading us into 2012 as part of a long-term ecological study that will continue to inform us about these cats and their movements and their conservation needs.

Pg. 2

SLT Country Highlights

Page 3: 5 wearing GPS radio collars Snow leopards are currently ......Our long-term snow leopard study in Mongolia is a joint project of the Snow Leopard Trust, Panthera, and the Snow Leopard

Update from the Field—continued SLT Country Highlights

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PAKISTAN: Planting trees to save snow leopards Working in 17 villages in Chitral and Gilgit, our Pakistan Program, the Snow Leopard Foundation of Pakistan (SLF Pakistan) is implementing several community-based conservation initiatives, including livestock vaccination programs, livestock insurance programs and Snow Leopard Enterprise handicraft programs. In an additional effort to reduce the habitat threats faced by snow leopards and their habitat, and to strengthen the rapport with the communities, a new initiative was piloted in the Drungagh community of Chitral. In partnership with the local Chitral Forest Department (CFD) 5,000 fast growing tree species, Rubina and Poplar, were transported to the community site and planted on communal lands by the members of the Drungagh Village Snow Leopard Conservation Organization (SLCO). Chitral lies in the dry temperate zone of Pakistan with limited to no rain in the summer. Winter season is cold and harsh with the main form of precipitation occurring as snow fall. Natural forests in this region are regenerating at very low rates while, because of the high demand for firewood in this harsh climate, deforestation rates are very high. This habitat destruction has had a negative impact on the wildlife in these forests and with the human population increasing day by day, the demand for firewood and timber is only expected to increase. Although the Chitral Forest Department (CFD) and other conservation organizations have recognized this threat and have been working on tree planting projects for many years, they have been unable to curb this threat so far, as forest regeneration is a long term process. Therefore, in partnership, SLF and the CFD set the following objectives for this project.

• To minimize the burden on natural forest. • To provide alternative, sustainable fuel wood in the nearby slopes. • To stabilize slope and reduce land sliding. • To minimize threat to Snow leopard and its prey base habitat. • To provide forage for live stock in order to reduce food competition with wild ungulates. • To involve the whole community in the conservation activity.

The Drungagh Village SLCO helped to implement this pilot project successfully, and now that the 5000 forest plants have been planted, other village SLCO’s will be supplied planting stocks. The CFD has agreed to provide an additional 8000 seedlings. In addition to the planting project, the Pakistan team has led several other big community and research initiatives, in-cluding a community outreach campaign on wetlands and a human-wildlife conflict survey. Most recently, three field biologists conducted a month-long expedition in the Karakoram Range, collecting data on human-wildlife conflicts and large mammals’ distribution and status. We look forward to sharing more about these efforts in the months to come.

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Update from the Field—continued SLT Country Highlights

INDIA: Forest Department Officials visit India Office Our India Program staff, based at the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF), have been working in close collaboration with the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department to first develop, and now implement a management plan for the Upper Spiti Landscape covering c. 3000 sq.km. As part of this management plan, officers from the Forest Department were invited to the NCF office to chart out the future direction of the plan’s implementation. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department was renewed and together, we drafted several key documents, including the guidelines for the Landscape Level Implementation Committee and Village Wildlife Conservation Committees for Spiti.

During their stay at the NCF office, the officials were introduced to our team and the updated on the work implemented by NCF-SLT, including information about the latest scientific techniques being utilized to study snow leopard populations (camera trap, DNA analysis, telemetry, etc.) and the details of the established 'core landscape units' that have been laid out for snow leopard conservation in the state of Himachal Pradesh. Several important projects will be jointly implemented in Spiti, including a radio telemetry study on snow leopards and the establishment of a Conservation Research Centre in Kibber. We have also agreed to assist the Forest in the development of the plans for an interpretation centre that will cater to the entire landscape including the Pin Valley National Park, Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary, Chandratal Wildlife Sanctuary and the Cold Desert Biosphere Reserve. Snow Leopard Trust’s pioneering activities and lessons learned from our research experiences in Mongolia were discussed at great length and with great interest. The team has also been working with the Arunachal Pradesh Forest Department on developing a recovery plan under Project Snow Leopard for the districts of Tawang and West Kameng in Aruanchal Pradesh. This region is believed to be a stronghold of the snow leopard in the eastern Himalaya and we hope to investigate this further to ensure that the status of this species remains good and secure. Through biological and community surveys, we hope to better understand basic aspects of biodiversity, human use, threats and local institutions, so that a framework for better conservation and management planning can be developed. Our research scholar, Nisarg Prakash, initiated this effort in January, at the peak of winter, and continued fieldwork through to late February. Winters are particularly harsh in these parts of the Himalayas, and we chose this season for our survey so as to maximise our contact with key informants, i.e., herders and others who would otherwise be out with livestock in the scattered summer pastures. Our work mainly centred around 3 river valleys – the Pangchen valley (Zemithang), the Mago valley (along the Mago Chu river), and the Sangti valley (Sangti, Chander and others). We surveyed around 18 villages, interviewed key informants and recorded perceptions, pressures on landscape and conflicts. We now have a clearer perspective on snow leopard and prey occurrences in the region, and we are compiling and mapping the data. According to the data, conflicts ranged from frequent crop losses due to wild pig depredation and livestock kills by wild dogs and snow leopards. All the river valleys are exposed to development in many forms, the most visible being a number of hydroelectric projects being planned. Some of these projects will have an ecological cost and are being resisted by local people too. The full Recovery Plan is now being compiled for submission to the state’s Forest Department and we look forward to sharing more information with you once it is finalized.

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