Nobody can answer the question as to how many snow leopards there are living in freedom. Researchers have calculated that there may be 7,000 at the most, perhaps even only 4,000. The Mongolian People's Republic reports for its territory a stock of 1,700 specimens. Others are found in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, China and the Central Asian republics of the former USSR. There they live at heights ranging from 3000 to 6000 m and preferably in mountainous regions situated far away from roads and villages. The mountainous regions with rugged steep faces, a not very sumptuous supply of food and the severe winters with a great deal of snow and crisp cold do not make life very easy for this cat, yet on the other hand this not very humane environment offers it the chance to survive. Mt. Everest,. the highest mountain of the world, is also the home of the snow leopard.

Its homerange is sized 12 to 40 sq.km, yet may also be 100 sq.km depending upon the availability of food. It lives mainly on wild perissodactyls such as blue sheep, ibexes, markhors and the argali. In the summer it likes to capture Himalayan marmots and in the winter it goes after the livestock of the mountain farmers. But most certainly it won't refuse - like any other leopard - birds and small animals either.

There is no other cat living at heights the snow leopard lives at although it follows its quarry down to lower areas, that is down to about 1800 - 2000 m.

There is still no complete consensus among the scientists as to whether the snow leopard belongs to the big cats, that's why-it earlier on had (and partly still has today) the generic name of "Uncia" (ounce) whereas since some time it is more and more being classified under the genus of "Panthera", that is together with lion, leopard and tiger.

Its scientific name is today predominantly given as Panthera uncia, thus the genus big cats, although the snow leopard like a small cat devours its prey sitting and not lying down like all the other big cats.

The snow leopard has many names (Irbis (Russia, Mongolia), Sah (Tibet), Shan (Laddak) Barfani chita (IJrdu) and Heung chitawa (Nepal). It has a body length of 1,2 - 1.5 m or 2 m including its tail. In freedom it can weigh 40-60 kg (sometimes up to 75 kg) with a shoulder height of 60 - 78 cm.

Its secretive way of life and above all the jagged mountainous landscapes not very suitable for observations by man which it inhabits as its habitat render observations extremely difficult. It is active at twilight and a loner; only during the mating season and when the females introduce their cubs to the life they are not alone.

The mating takes place towards the end of the winter or in early spring and the two to three cubs are born 90-100 days later. It is said that the young stay with the mother for more than one year, probably even 16-18 months. When they fail to capture prey they feel inclined to go to another area every day. With a big quarry they are sometimes occupied for up to a week and in such case they, of course, stay in its vicinity all the time.

87 % of the local population in its home region of South-East Asia are in favour of a radical extirpation of the snow leopard. The newspaper 'The Mongol Messenger' reported on 9.6.1995 on page 3 that the Mongolian customs authorities confiscated 200 furs in 1994 alone with a total number of 1,700 specimens in the whole of the country. For a fur the villagers from Bhote got about 10 US dollars. For a fur coat one needs 16 furs. It sells for 60,000 US dollars.

July 1995:

High up in the mountains of the Trans Altai Gobi National Park in Southern Mongolia I had put up my tent next to the yurta of a herdsman's family.

One chance I saw only later on in the year-when in September the marmots had retired to their holes and the snow leopard therefore also visited lower areas of the mountain range to look for food. Therefore already after one week I broke off my attempt to observe and photograph snow leopards.

January 1996:

In the Djunga Gobi National Park this month a snow leopard had captured a horse foal: The livestock breeder was not amused. Horses are a very valuable property and practically part of the family. - One day later the snow leopard was dead.. (according to rumor).

In wintertime the food conditions are more critical for the big cats because the marmots are missing. Last week a snow leopard mother came down into the valley on two successive nights accompanied by three young ones aged about 10 months and each time killed a yak belonging to one of the herdsman.. .

Around this time of the year it is difficult for a leopard mother to capture enough food for herself and for three big young. In such time the hunger is big - and the tame pasturing cattle of the Mongols an easy and tempting prey... Some days later all four leopards were dead (Says the rumor).

In a relatively small area of perhaps 50 sq.km in which I now stayed gathering information thus five snow leopards had been perhaps killed within only one month. I wonder how many snow leopards will be killed in the twelve months of a year in the whole of the Mongolian People's Republic - and in China, Russia, Nepal etc.

A small taste of what happens gives you perhaps the news item which the daily newspaper Ulaanbaatar News published in October 1995 according to which 200 furs had been confiscated at the local airport in the course of the past year. If taking as a basis the figure usually quoted by the police, i.e. that only about 5 % of all smuggling cases are discovered, then this adds up to a huge number of snow leopards being killed every year.

The family I lived with here in the Altai Mountains had about 100 sheep, 100 goats, 20-30 head of cattle and yaks, 5 camels and 20 horses. In the last year the big animals together (horses, cattle and yaks) had had 7 young - none of which survived. Two died from cold or diseases and five were killed by wolves and leopards.

A tragedy for the family: the animal harvest of a whole year had practically been destroyed.

It is rather easy and very comfortable in Europe and America to demand the strict protection of all snow leopards because to us that doesn't mean any sacrifice at all. To expect others to accept without complaint heavy losses for the benefit of nature protection is easy and cheap.

A fine example of the lip service of the Europeans I experienced last automn in Germany in the Bavarian Forest. There the government of the Free State of Bavaria intended to slightly enlarge the national park having been in existence for 25 years, that is to say by wooded areas owned by the State anyway. Thus nobody would have had to make a sacrifice. Depite all that a storm of indignation broke out among the local population; the municipality of Freyung and others organized protest meetings at which the supporters were swept away. And just because the natives would no longer be allowed to go straight through the wood once the state forest had been converted into a national park, but would have to stay on signposted trails..

That's how we humans are: Others are to accept without complaint the destruction of their entire year's harvest, but oneself is not even prepared to stay on paths..

Early this month we systematically searched the ridge of a mountain over a distance of about 3 km for tracks and in the process found four preys of the snow leopard: a female ibex, a horse foal and two yak calves - furthermore a wild animal and three head of pasturing cattle!

One yak calf was already completely devoured and to judge by the tracks the cat had visited it in three successive nights. As to the other yak calf the haunches had just been nibbled at and it showed 'beautifully - like from a textbook' the killing bite of the leopard at its victim's throat. The nine month old horse foal had already been dead for about two weeks and also at the ibex a leopard had been feeding for two to three nights in a row as we were told by the tracks. Last night it had probably been here for the last time for there was nothing much left.

One afternoon in February at about 16.30 hrs - in a wondergul evening sun - the moment had finally come: we slowly rode along a mountain ridge always looking out for tracks and traces of the big cat when we saw 'two' snow leopards: one was about to disappear over a rocky ridge approximately three meters high and the other one lay down in front of it and observed us.

The two cats were about identical in size, thus it was no pair in the mating phase nor mother and child, but they must have been brothers or sisters from spring 1994, thus now just under two years old.

After some time the second snow leopard, too, sneaked away withdrawing around the rocky slope in the same direction into which the other one had disappeared as well.

That in alike situations one cat stays in hiding and the other one strolls around quite lightheartedly is typical of leopard behaviour which already I observed quite often in Africa. There, for instance, I followed a leopard mother with her cubs for a number of years with my camera and it was interesting to see how careless the son and how careful by comparison the leopard daughter was. The son often ran 10-20 m ahead when the family went out for a stroll whereas the daughter stayed at her mother's side. When unkown territory had to be crossed then the daughter always waited until mother and brother had gone ahead and gave her the "All clear" signal: only then she followed them.

Also this 'hiding' with the head stuck in the cave and the body left visible I already observed several times with leopards. Perhaps the animal thinks that when it doesn't see the danger the danger can't see it either. As a defensive position this posture is surely very inappropriate indeed.

I still recall rather well a situation involving an African leopard female about three years ago when one morning the same took one of her about 2-month old young carrying it in her mouth - to a new cave. Halfway on her way to the cave she was surprised by a horde of baboons attacking her right away. With her child in her mouth she didn't have much of a chance and therefore fled into a small cave this time letting her tail hang out as well. The baboons just had enough courage to approach the leopard far enough to touch her tail several times but without pulling it or biting into it. The leopard didn't move but waited motionsless until the baboons finally cleared off.