We use this tool to help us understand the diversity of specific
snow leopard populations as well as identify individual snow leopards and potentially their relationship to each other.
Intensify conservation efforts in the large landscapes required for snow leopard survival by identifying and designating critical habitats of key
snow leopard populations as no - go areas for destructive land uses, maintaining their integrity and connectivity through natural corridors, and strengthening their protection on the ground.
Not exact matches
Scientists often spend days tracking rare animals such
as snow leopards or orangutans for samples of DNA, for instance from hair or faeces, to understand their movements, monitor their
populations and propose ways to protect them.
While estimates of the amount of small mammals
snow leopards consume may have been overstated, the importance of large ungulate
populations to the
snow leopard's diets may have been understated,
as this study suggests stable
snow leopard populations are possibly more reliant upon large ungulate prey than previously understood.
Weiskopf explained that a big problem with collecting and identifying scat in the field is that researchers mostly rely on morphological characteristics such
as shape, size or associated signs of
snow leopards, and since scat from different species can look similar, this can lead to misrepresented
population estimates and errors in reporting what the
snow leopards are actually eating.
Snow leopards function as a keystone species — although they occur in relatively low abundance, snow leopards play a critical role in regulating the populations of other species, preventing any one species from dominating the habi
Snow leopards function
as a keystone species — although they occur in relatively low abundance,
snow leopards play a critical role in regulating the populations of other species, preventing any one species from dominating the habi
snow leopards play a critical role in regulating the
populations of other species, preventing any one species from dominating the habitat.
As livestock numbers in northern India grow, some of the
snow leopard's main prey species
populations are shrinking fast.
Disproportionate mortality of males, presumably an important cause of the change in sex ratio of the
snow leopard population in Tost, is reported in several carnivores
as resulting from human - induced factors such
as poaching and retaliatory killing, including Amur tigers in southeast Russia [32],
leopards in South Africa [34], and cougars in the Pacific Northwest [33], although there are exceptions (e.g. tiger
population in Panna, Central India, that had turned male - biased prior to extinction due to poaching; [36], [37]-RRB-.
The change in sex ratio of
snow leopards in Tost was accompanied by a potential decline in the number of cubs per female over the study period
as the female
population increased.
For felid species with individually distinct fur patterns, such
as tigers Panthera tigris [8], jaguars Panthera onca [10]--[12],
snow leopards Panthera uncia [13],
leopards Panthera pardus [14], cheetahs Acinonyx jubatus [15] and ocelots Leopardus pardalis [16], [17], data from camera - trapping can be analysed using capture - recapture models to estimate abundances and
population dynamics [2].