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Snow leopards don’t care much for company. So to get close, photographer Steve Winter deployed a series of camera traps that automatically snapped pictures whenever an animal crept near. The result is a set of intimate portraits that expands our vision of a legendary mountain recluse.
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A clicking camera shutter—eight shots in seven seconds—catches the ear of a snow leopard in India’s Hemis National Park. “I sometimes dislike camera traps because they don’t always reflect my vision,” says photographer Steve Winter. “But maybe that’s because the animal itself takes the pictures!”
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Rub, scratch, urinate, defecate—a snow leopard marks its trail with often pungent graffiti. The scent helps these solitary cats avoid confrontation in territory they share. During mating season, though, the scent is meant as a magnet. As few as 3,500 of these endangered cats may survive in the wild.
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Snow leopards signal their presence to others of their kind with sight and scent marks, including scratches and urine spray, along their trails. Marking is most intensive when the cats are most interested in finding each other: January to mid-March, the mating season.
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Snow leopard home ranges vary tremendously in size, mostly depending on the abundance—or scarcity—of their favored meals, wild sheep and goats. Where prey is abundant, a single cat’s territory may extend from 5 to 14 square miles. Where food is harder to find, a snow leopard may range over more than 350 square miles.
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To traverse rocky slopes and survive in cold mountain climes—even at altitudes as high as 18,000 feet—snow leopards are well equipped. Long hair with thick underfur, wide, well-padded paws, and a big chest and strong lungs keep these cats running up where the air gets thin.
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Invoking values of nonviolence and respect for life revered by monks and other Buddhists, the Dalai Lama has called for an end to snow leopard killings. They continue because hides and other parts are lucrative items across most of the cats’ range.
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On Pakistan’s far northern frontier, a park ranger scans the slopes for wild goats—prime snow leopard prey—as researcher Tom McCarthy (left) sets up a snare beside a tree raked by cat claws. His goal is to capture and radio-collar a cat. “You can spend months in the mountains and not see a snow leopard or even any signs of one,” says McCarthy. “But I can feel when they’re around.”
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Crags and crevices in India’s Hemis National Park give snow leopards cover when they are hunting, but offer less effective protection from poachers. Wildlife conservationist George Schaller fears the cats might someday only survive in zoos—a fate he calls “a sad compromise.”
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That tail—fluffy as a muffler and almost body length—helps a snow leopard stay warm and keep its balance on hazardous ledges. These predators also help keep mountain ecosystems in balance by reducing the numbers of wild sheep and goats that otherwise might overgraze alpine grasslands.
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With a coat that’s practically camouflage, a snow leopard blends with the rocky, sun-dappled slopes as it strides along India’s Karlung Ridge—then disappears. In parts of the species’ range, individuals have been known to cross 25 miles of open desert between mountain ridges in a single night.
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Scampering silhouette: A snow leopard gets snapped not by a camera trap, but by photographer Steve Winter. With a 1,200-millimeter lens firmly in hand, Winter could barely believe his good luck. “The local guys in camp had just put up Buddhist prayer flags,” says Winter. “I felt like this story was blessed.”
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With darkness closing in on snow leopards—habitat loss, poaching, loss of prey, lack of effective protection, and more—conservation groups are groping for ways to brighten up the species’ future prospects. One ray of hope—a livestock vaccination program that changes the economic calculus for many farmers: If someone else pays to inoculate my herd, then fewer of my animals will die from disease. So when a snow leopard takes out one or two of my animals, I pledge not to reach for my rifle.
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Aid provided by conservation groups gives locals economic incentive to preserve the predators—good news for the region’s ecotourism initiatives, but mixed news for prey like blue sheep.
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Stanzin Pulit’s yaks are his wealth, and in Ladakh’s Zanskar Valley, herds are vulnerable to snow leopard attacks. Conservation groups help herders build protective corrals in return for their pledge not to kill snow leopards.
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In fields below the cliffside monastery of Phuktal, Indian farmers harvest barley one fistful at a time. As more people try to eke out a living on higher ground in the Himalaya, they increasingly cross paths with snow leopards traveling down the mountains during winter in pursuit of food, wild or domesticated.
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In another landmark event, a snow leopard urinates beside his trail. “These animals are often quite predictable,” says researcher Tom McCarthy of the Snow Leopard Trust. “They usually mark at the base of a cliff, or on an overhanging rock, or along ridgeline.” When they bed down, leopards also show a consistent preference for spots offering clear views of surrounding terrain.
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Long, muscular hind legs enable snow leopards to leap seven times their own body length, but such prowess hasn’t kept them out of harm’s way. The cats will flourish, say conservationists, only when they become more valuable alive than dead. Tangible paybacks give local people a chance to embrace their deepest spiritual values—and their respect for life—without risking their own survival.
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Their big eyes are so well adapted for low-light vision that snow leopards can hunt in near total darkness—but they can still go hungry when humans compete for their prey. Though trophy hunts for wild sheep and goats bring income to local communities, they can deplete food stocks for snow leopards.
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