21 October 2016
By Andy Coghlan
As many as 450 endangered snow
leopards have been killed each year since 2008, a report on the fate
of the mountain cats estimates.
Only 4000 to 7000 of the animals are
thought to remain in the 12 mountainous Asian countries they inhabit.
A big surprise is that more than
half the killings – 55 per cent – are estimated to be done by herders avenging
livestock attacks by leopards, with
only 21 per cent of the cats taken by poachers.
“It’s a completely new insight,
and provides a very important point for discussion on how to ensure snow
leopards are protected,” says Rishi
Sharma, leader of wildlife charity WWF’s snow leopard programme.
“More than half the killing is
not for illegal trade as such, so as long as we don’t address these issues
affecting local communities, it will continue,” warns Sharma, who is a
co-author of the new
report by TRAFFIC, the global organisation monitoring the illegal trade
in endangered species.
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The insight offers potential new
ways to address the problem, says Sharma. These will be discussed today in New
York at a summit on snow leopard conservation convened by the UN Development
Programme in conjunction with the Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem
Protection Program.
Compensation plan
The report proposes two key
measures. First, governments in the 12 countries across the leopard’s range
should increase the funds available to compensate herders whose animals
are killed.
Second, herders should be given
extra materials to strengthen the pens, or corrals, where they keep their
animals at night.
“They’re often made of mud
patched up with flimsy wood materials, so it’s easy for snow leopards to break
in,” says Sharma. “When they do, there’s such a commotion that they tend to
kill several livestock animals, as many as 15 or 20, and that’s very difficult
for local herders to tolerate.”
Strengthening the corrals could
therefore offer a major defence against snow leopard predation, preventing the
significant losses of yaks, cows, donkeys, horses, sheep and goats that trigger
retaliation.
Likewise, when leopards attack
individual animals grazing on mountain slopes during the day, better
compensation packages could discourage revenge.
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