Ladakh home to 477 snow leopards, highest in country

The Snow Leopard Population Assessment in India (SPAI) report released on Tuesday estimates the snow leopard population in India at 718. The exercise was conducted from 2019 to 2023.

The SPAI programme covered over 1,20,000 square km of crucial snow leopard habitat across the trans-Himalayan region. While 477 were found in Ladakh, 124 were in spotted in Uttarakhand, 51 in Himachal Pradesh, 36 in Arunachal Pradesh, 21 in Sikkim and nine in Jammu and Kashmir.

The report was released by Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav during the National Board for Wildlife meeting held here.

The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) is the national coordinator for the estimation exercise that was carried out with the support of Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysuru, and WWF-India.

The first step in the estimation exercise involved evaluating the spatial distribution of snow leopards and in the second, camera traps were used to estimate the number of big cats. The camera traps were deployed at 1,971 locations.

The Union Environment Ministry said, “Until recently, the snow leopard range in India was undefined due to lack of extensive nationwide assessments for this vulnerable species.”

The report mentioned the need for establishing a dedicated snow leopard cell at WII under the Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change with the primary focus on long-term population monitoring, supported by well-structured study designs and consistent field surveys.

“Consistent monitoring is essential to ensuring snow leopards’ long-term survival. For the same, states and UTs can consider adopting a periodic population estimation approach (every fourth year) in the snow leopard range,” the report added.