When a snow leopard calls in the wild, do you know what it sounds like? If you’re like me, you had no idea he’d sound like this. A recent video from Pakistan’s Karakoram Mountains was posted by the White Lion Foundation. Snow leopards are elusive and solitary by nature and only come together to mate and raise offspring.
In order to establish territory and to let females know he is in the area, the adult male uses vocal calls. The snow leopard is one of the most endangered large cats in the world. On average, one has been killed every day for the past decade.
Researchers working in Pakistan’s Karakoram Mountains acquired an “exceptionally uncommon film” of a male snow leopard claiming his territory and calling across a snow-covered landscape in February of this year. The resounding yawp of these furtive cats is a sound few people have ever heard in the wild.
It was taken using a professional remote field camera deliberately positioned along a nature route in the Khaplu Valley in Baltistan in the Himalayas, according to The White Lion Foundation. To monitor the wild snow leopard population and determine how many of these “grey ghosts” are hiding out in the mountainous landscape, high-definition cameras have been installed. Snow leopard sounds in the wild are exceptionally rare and special, according to Dr. John Knight of the TWLF. Females are alerted to his presence by his vocalizations, which are used to establish territory.
Snow leopards are among the world’s most endangered big cats, with only 4,000 to 7,500 left in the wild. In addition, they are among the least understood. Because of their solitary, secretive nature, snow leopards are very difficult to study. This is a crucial step in developing effective conservation plans to reduce poaching and human-leopard conflict.
The TWLF works with local villages and the Baltistan Wildlife Conservation and Development Organization (BWCDO) to help put safeguards in place to avoid confrontations between leopards and humans.
With this footage collected by the foundation, it brings the public closer to an animal that is notoriously difficult to observe.
Image Credit & More Info: thewhitelion.foundation (You can support them to save these animals too)
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