Recovery Plan 

There are many organizations that are working on helping snow leopard populations. One is the World Wildlife Fund. They plan to “establish protected areas that span national borders, and quarters that connect isolated animal populations.” This will help decrease the fragmentation of their habitats that climate change is causing with the goal of helping their population thrive. If these efforts are successful they are hoping that snow leopard populations will stay at their current numbers. There are also indirect effects of climate change that are hurting snow leopard populations. Rising temperatures have allowed farmers to bring their cattle up to graze higher on the mountains. This has increased the number of cattle killed by snow leopards. These farmers make about $2 a day on average, they are often very poor and need the cattle for their own survival. Even one death can create a big financial burden for these families. These communities dont kill snow leopards for fun, they do it out of necessity. It's estimated that over half of snow leopard killings annually are retaliatory killings done by farmers who believe this is their only option. The Snow Leopard trust offers livestock insurance to these farmers. The farmers that participate in this program get reimburse for every animal they own that is killed by a snow leopard. This will decrease the number of retaliatory killings and will help avoid a war between farming communities and snow leopards. This insurance policy has other guidelines that help protect their populations. The farmers in this program sign a contract promising to protect the snow leopards from poaching and to have graze free areas to protect the snow leopard's prey’s food sources. In order to protect their territory from rising temperatures we only have one option- to stop releasing such large amounts of carbon in the atmosphere to slow climate change. There is no way to artificially cool down 12 countries to protect snow leopards habitats, we must focus on stopping climate change on a broader level. We need to switch from fossil fuel and coal plants to clean energy. If we want a world with a diverse ecosystem windmills and solar panels are our future. If we continue with the track were on our children will never have the possibility to see a snow leopard In person. Conservationists hope to keep the population steady with these programs, and are trying to prevent the Snow Leopard numbers from going down further from where they are now. 

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Picture of women in a farming community that

is affected by snow leopards by the Snow Leopard trust