The population of wild snow leopards is very limited in our world where they suffer from an important pressure. But these animals living in high altitude valleys tend to be very difficult to observe and they may not be observed for long times when they live in isolated places.
This more or less the story of a discovery in Afghanistan: The valleys of the Wakhan Corridor, in the Eastern part of the country, not very far from Pakistan and Tajikistan, host a small group of these magnificent big cats.
The Wildlife Conservation Society organized the installation of photography traps in this area and succeeded in confirming the existence of a snow leopard group in this inaccessible mountainous region. But they do not dare give numbers yet.
To support its own promotion, the Snow Leopard Conservation Fund freely shares tow of its nicest photo pictures of snow leopards. Notice that -for once- these are photos of free wild animals and they were not shot in zoos. Snow leopards are defintely having a hard time in the wild and its survival is defintely not certain.
I don’t know if (and I doubt that) Calvin Klein latest technology-based perfume, Obsession for Men, can live up to the expectations it raises. This musky scent is supposed to attract women, run them wild with its potent aroma. However, wildlife photographers in the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala found that it could be used to attract jaguars, cougars and pumas to the camera traps used to get pictures of the endangered cats. Apparently, this does not only attract male jaguars, but females also like the cologne from Calvin Klein.
This was so marked that Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo tried it on snow leopards too. This works! Consequently, the Snow Leopard Trust will try it in South Gobi, Mongolia. Remember that snow leopards are so difficult to find in the wild that apart from GPS collars, it may take months for experts before they can find one in some of the most difficult terrains.
I guess that this will soon lead to a Ig Nobel prize in the future. And some nice new photos, too.
The Snow Leopard Trust organizes several scientific works related to the snow leopard. In India, Rishi Sharma pilots a program of camera traps aimed at snow leopards. They produced quite superb images, obviously because they were setup not only with data-collection in mind.
Tambako The Jaguar is the pseudo of a photographer that brings a large number of animal pictures to Flickr. Despite the fact that most of them are photos shot in zoos, let’s appreciate the nice work with big cats, starting with snow leopards.
Automatic hidden camera triggered by movement has shot still frames, half a second apart. The result is this great video of a snow leopard in the wild.
Two cubs born in Melbourne Zoo on December 7th, 2008, started to come out and offer themselves to the eyes of the public.
This is a major event for the zoo.
Most cat babies or cubs are plain cute. But these two have the advantage of also being very elegant in their black-and-white version of the cutest cub.
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Two cubs born in Melbourne Zoo on December 7th, 2008, started to come out and offer themselves to the eyes of the public.
