Mongolia

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MongoliaSecond to China, Mongolia comes second as the country with the largest population of snow leopards in the world. With an area of 101,000 km2 of snow leopard habitat, Mongolia is home to approximately 500 to a thousand endangered snow leopards. Since 1992, the Snow Leopard Trust has been working with Mongolia making it the first of out the 5 countries the organisation has worked with. Since then, the Snow Leopard Trust has partnered with the Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation (SLCF) to expand conservation efforts within the country.

In addition to this partnership, GPS tracking collars and remote sensing cameras are used for  long-term ecological studies  conducted in the South Gobi region of Mongolia as a result of their partnership with Panthera.

Threats to the Snow Leopards in this region include:

  • Illegal Poaching
  • Retaliatory Killings
  • Mining: Dangerous chemicals and explosives are used during the extraction of minerals in the habitat areas of the snow leopards and these open pit mines have forced snow leopards and their prey to relocate threatening their well-being.

Conservation Programs:

  • Snow Leopard Enterprise
  • Livestock Insurance
  • Long-Term Ecological Studies
  • Research Cameras
  • Herder Education Programs: Newsletters were created for every participant involved in the program which is distributed to them three times a year sharing information about the developments and improvements in their conservation efforts. Detailed posters are also provided for the herders giving them information on how to react when the snow leopards prey on their livestock in order to discourage such happenings in the future without harming them.