First photographic record of the snow leopard Panthera uncia in Kishtwar High Altitude National Park, Jammu and Kashmir, India OYN DRIL A SANYA L 1 ,TAWQ I R BASHIR * 1 , 2 ,MANOJ RANA3 and PAN KA J CHANDAN 3
Abstract The snowleopard Panthera uncia is categorized as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. It is the least well-known of the large felids because of its shy and elusive nature and the inaccessible terrain it inhabits across the mountains of Central and South Asia. We report the first photographic record of the snow leopard in Kishtwar High Altitude National Park, India. During our camera-trapping surveys, conducted using a grid-based design, we obtained eight photographs of snow leopards, the first at 3,280 m altitude on 19 September 2022 and subsequent photographs over 3,004–3,878 m altitude. We identified at least four different individuals, establishing the species’ occurrence in Kiyar, Nanth and Renai catchments, with a capture rate of 0.123 ± SE 0.072 captures/100 trap-nights. We also recorded the presence of snow leopard prey species, including the Siberian ibex Capra sibirica, Himalayan musk deer Moschus leucogaster, long-tailed marmot Marmota caudata and pika Ochotona sp., identifying the area as potential snow leopard habitat. Given the location of Kishtwar High Altitude National Park, this record is significant for the overall snow leopard conservation landscape in India. We recommend a comprehensive study across the Kishtwar landscape to assess the occupancy, abundance, demography and movement patterns of the snow leopard and its prey. In addition, interactions between the snow leopard and pastoral communities should be assessed to understand the challenges facing the conservation and management of this important high-altitude region.
Keywords Camera trapping, India, Kashmir Himalaya, Kishtwar, Panthera uncia, photographic record, snow leopard
the sub-alpine, alpine and trans-Himalayan regions of Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh,
I
*Corresponding author,
tawqir84@gmail.com 1Wildlife Biology Laboratory, Centre of Research for Development, University
of Kashmir, Srinagar, India 2Division of Wildlife Sciences, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural
Sciences and Technology of Kashmir, Srinagar, India 3Nature, Wildlife and Climate Change Division, National Development Foundation, Jammu, India
Received 25 July 2023. Revision requested 12 October 2023. Accepted 19 December 2023. First published online 9 May 2024.
ndia contains c. 2% of the global snow leopard Panthera uncia range, with 400–700 individuals distributed along
Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh (McCarthy et al., 2017; Sharma & Singh, 2020). The snow leopard is an iconic species and an ideal flagship for the conservation of these high-altitude mountain ecosystems (McCarthy et al., 2017). The occupancy and abundance of the snow leopard is poorly known across its range in India (Suryawanshi et al., 2019; Sharma & Singh, 2020). Population surveys in the Western Himalayas have been limited to Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand (Ghoshal et al., 2019). In Kashmir the snow leopard has been reported from Gurez and Sonamarg (Ahmad et al., 2020), in the upper Baltal-Zojila region (Hussain, 2022), in the Kargil range (Maheshwari et al., 2012) and in the areas adjacent to the north-eastern and south-eastern boundary of Kishtwar that connect with the Zanskar range in the Union Territory of Ladakh (Snow Leopard Conservancy, 2018; Fig 1). However, its occurrence remains uncertain in the majority of Kashmir, including in protected areas. Here we report the first photographic records of snow leopards in Kishtwar High Altitude National Park, through camera trapping. Prior to this there were reports of snow leopard presence in the area based on signs (Hilaluddin & Naqash, 2013) and a sighting record (Zaheer et al., 2023), although neither of these reports included photographic evidence. The 2,191km2 Kishtwar High Altitude National Park cov-
ers an altitude range of 1,800–6,000 m above the Chenab River and below the Nagin Sheer glacier, connected with Ladakh through the Zanskar range to the north-east and Himachal Pradesh to the south (Fig. 1). The Park is largely inaccessible above 4,300mbecause of the rugged terrain and extreme weather. The Park has several vegetation types across its wide variation in elevation, aspect, slope and moisture regime (Sharma et al., 2018). The Semi-Arid Biogeographic Zone, which defines the north-eastern bor- der of the study area, is a mosaic of biomes. This encourages the inward movement of several species of mammals, in- cluding the wolf Canis lupus, Siberian ibex Capra sibirica, Himalayan musk deer Moschus leucogaster and snow leop- ard. The National Park supports the livelihoods of thou- sands of nomadic livestock herders and also attracts pilgrims to several temples in the Kibber and Nanth catchments. Using ArcGIS 9.3 (Esri, USA), we divided the study area
into a grid of 5 × 5 km cells and deployed 40 camera traps (Cuddeback Blue Series 1279 and 1248, Cuddeback, USA)
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. Oryx, 2024, 58(6), 788–792 © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605323001965
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