ESS Presentation

Snow leopard
Snow leopards live in the high, rugged mountains of Central Asia. While their habitat
range covers 2 million km2 (approximately the size of Greenland or Mexico), there are
only between 4,000 to 6,500 snow leopards left in the wild.

While the snow leopard is a top predator in its mountain ecosystem, human activities
pose serious threats to these cats and their habitat.


Poaching: Snow leopards are known for their beautiful fur, which are highly
valued in Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and Russian for garment making. Their
bones and other body parts are in demand for use in traditional Asian medicine
and wild snow leopards are sometimes captured for private animal collections in
Central Asia.

Retribution Killings: In addition to wild prey species such as ibex or blue sheep,
snow leopards occasionally prey on domestic livestock grazing in their habitat.
Herders are dependent on these animals for both money and food, and the loss of
even a single sheep or goat can cause economic hardship for an entire family.
Herders in snow leopard areas often feel left with little choice but to retaliate
against the snow leopard to prevent future attacks. Depending on where they live,
herders use traps, poison, and rifles to kill wild snow leopards.

Loss of Habitat and Prey: Because shepherding communities depend on their
livestock financially, there is an incentive to increase the size of a sheep. These
growing numbers of domestic livestock need to eat more wild grasses, which leads
to overgrazing. This activity reduces the amount of food available to the wild
sheep and goats that snow leopards typically eat, reducing their numbers.
Additionally, humans hunt these wild prey species for meat and trophies,
decreasing wild prey even further.

Mining: Mining activities also threaten snow leopard habitat. Miners use
dangerous chemicals and explosives to extract minerals from the mountains where
snow leopards live. These open pit mines cause severe ecological damage that
forces snow leopards and their prey to relocate.

Lack of Resources: Many herding families are faced with extreme financial
hurdles and cannot devote time or resources to improving local ecology. Similarly,
governments in snow leopard habitat areas are focused on economic development
and environmental policy is not often pursued. Enforcing the laws that protect
snow leopards can come with high cost, and it is difficult to catch poachers in the
remote and rugged habitat where snow leopards live.






Tiger

Tigers are native to much of Asia, from some of the coldest regions to the steamy
rainforests of the Indonesian Islands. They are the top predator in every ecosystem they
inhabit.

All tiger subspecies put together currently amount to around 3,200 endangered tigers
remaining in the wild.


The main reasons tigers are endangeredin most cases, critically endangeredare
illegal hunting for their pelts, meat and body parts (used in folk medicines) as well
as habitat loss that results from forest destruction.