Update from the Field

Transcription

1 May 2015 Through our Long-Term Ecological Study (LTES) in the Tost region of Mongolia, we are learning a lot about the lives of wild snow leopards. Below are some exciting updates directly from this Long-Term Study along with news from other important snow leopard range countries. Following Tsetsen Over the past several weeks, Tsetsen s collar has worked well, sending location uplinks at regular intervals. After remaining fairly sedentary for a week, Tsetsen spent nearly two weeks close to our mobile trap camp towards the end of April, resulting in several of our traps needing to be shut down to prevent his recapture. Before that, he spent two weeks in the Tost Mountains. Tsetsen is primarily patrolling an area that comprised the core of Ariun s range, utilizing the western parts of the Tost-Tosonbumba mountains as his range. Long-Term Ecological Study FAST FACT With Tsetsen s collaring in March 2015, we have now fitted twenty snow leopards with GPS collars (11 males and 9 females) since the inception of our LTES in This is more snow leopards than all previous collaring studies combined! The yellow points represent Tsetsen s last month locations, and the polygons represent his Fixed Kernel Home Range estimated for the locations representing the entire period that he has been collared for MONGOLIA May tends to be an extremely busy month for our team in Mongolia as the majority of our team is in the field. Our Conservation and Education Manager, Tserennadmid (Nadia) Mijiddorj, sent this update via in between her travels. Our Research and Monitoring Manager, Purevjav (Pujii) Lkhagvajav is setting up camera trap with Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park Rangers and biologists to get to know about the population estimation of snow leopard in National Park. I [Nadia} completed conservation attitude survey for eleven communities in Khovd province by interviewing over 80 Snow Leopard Enterprise (SLE) program participants. I am currently analyzing the results which should be available soon. SLE Coordinators: Unurzul (Unuruu) Dashzeveg and Enkhtushin (Tuvshe) Gongor have left to purchase and order the next wave of SLE products from the communities. We generally get that shipment sometime in July, and as soon as we do, we will let our buyers know so they can purchase for their gift shops. Unuruu and Tuvshe also lead several product improvement trainings for around six herder communities. Pg. 1

2 Country Highlights INDIA Double-Observer Prey Surveys Winter is receding and it's time for our annual wild ungulate surveys in Spiti. In these surveys, our team, comprisedof two separate parties, survey four large blocks looking for direct sightings of blue sheep and ibex. Our team has been carrying out these surveys-- often referred to as double-observer surveys--for the last five years. Data emerging from these studies should help us build a longterm data set of the wild ungulate population in the valley, which will be analysed against the constantly changing backdrop of human use and other pressures. The population estimates for the four blocks surveyed this year are: Tabo: 572 (± 158 SE) blue sheep, Pin Valley: 192 (± 77 SE) Ibex, Losar: 44 (± 23 SE) ibex, Kibber: 744 (± 139 SE) blue sheep and ibex, and Demul: 381 (± 96 SE) blue sheep. The immediate overall trend in their numbers looks consistent, i.e. there are no increasing or decreasing trends. In addition to these surveys, our team started another effort to estimate the abundance of snow leopards along the northern bank of the Spiti River. They have set up 38 camera traps across an area covering more than 1000 km². The cameras will now remain in the field for the next 60 days of monitoring and together with existing data from the previous three years, we will look at snow leopard demography and habitat use with reference to environmental and human pressures. We look forward to some great snow leopard images that we shall keep you posted about. PAKISTAN - Snow Leopard Enterprise (SLE) Expansion Surveys SLE team interviewing the Kalash women during the SLE surveys in Birir Valley SLF Summer is fast approaching and that will mark the start of another field season. In preparation for our annual nature education activities in Spiti, we conducted a teacher's meeting for teachers from schools that are part of the Himalayan Nature Club (HNC). The meeting was attended by 13 teachers and plans for the upcoming year were discussed. Following this, our team has started conducting classroom activities for students in 20 schools, that we are continuously engaging. The HNC activity spans an hour and is carried out for students of classes 6 to 9. This is a precursor to our 3-day residential camps that will start in mid-june. Snow Leopard Enterprises (SLE) is aimed to reduce the conflict between wildlife conservation and economic development by encouraging the rural community members, particularly women, to address the poverty that leads to retaliation against snow leopards by balancing monetary needs with the needs of the snow leopards and associated mountain ecosystem. We have been successfully implementing the SLE program in two villages of the Chitral District of Pakistan since As SLE involves cash revenue, it is taken as the most accepted model in the predation-affected communities. The Snow Leopard Foundation- Pakistan (SLF) will be expanding the SLE model to two new sites in Chitral in 2015 with the generous support from the Zoos Victoria. This initiative is expected to engage 150 households in the conservation paradigm. To start with, SLF conducted human-carnivore conflict and attitude surveys in seven sites and selected two (Birir and Golain) based on the predation intensity and level of public tolerance of snow leopards and other predators for the expansion of SLE. Birir valley is one of the three valleys of the Chitral District occupied by the ancient Kalash tribe-the descendants of Alexander the Great. Continued on Next Page Pg. 2

3 Country Highlights Group photo with Nature Club members at Birir Valley SLF PAKISTAN Continued Next, SLF conducted a detailed assessment of SLE s potential including the existing products, availability of raw material, marketing mechanism and required skills possessed by the participating women folk in the two sites. They also held meetings with the village committees to introduce the program and seek their views and support during the program implementation and monitoring. The community elites of both sites thanked SLF and its collaborators for starting conservation initiatives in their area and ensured their full support in making the program a success. They pledged to stand side by side with SLF in safeguarding the precious wildlife of the region. The SLF team also visited schools and held meetings with the school administration to get them onboard for the conservation initiatives and education activities in schools. Nature club members were identified in one school of Birir valley and a lecture was given to the students on the importance of wildlife conservation. CHINA Building a New Collaboration on Genetic Analyses of Snow Leopard Feces Prepared by Cheng Chen, China Snow Leopard Project, Program Officer & Scientist, Shan Shui/Panthera The China team has started a new collaboration with a high-quality molecular lab to work on genetic analyses of snow leopards. The team has been collecting fecal samples of snow leopards and sympatric carnivores in China s Qinghai and Sichuan Provinces since We plan to investigate the diets, population structure and the landscape ecology of carnivores using genetic techniques. Our laboratory partner, the Ecology Conservation and Environment Center (ECEC), Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences is led by Dr. Douglas Yu whose research interests are conservation biology and theoretical study of symbiosis. To accelerate biodiversity assessments, Yu s group is running a well-managed molecular lab and has developed metabarcoding techniques based on high-throughput sequencing for multi-species identification. This is a promising method to identify host and prey species from fecal DNA. Because of the common interests, our two groups expect to establish a long-term cooperation. The collaboration started from fecal DNA extraction, which is sponsored by Panthera. Cheng Chen and He Bing of Shan Shui/Panthera snow leopard project arrived at the lab in late April, and over a two week period, received strict training on fecal DNA extraction, DNA quality testing and contamination control. Training was provided by the responsible and patient staff, Dr. Ji Yinqiu and Dr. Wang Jiaxin. Since mid-april, Cheng and He were formally qualified to do the lab work independently and started to work on more samples. As of now, 228 feces have been processed, and they expect to finish the extractions of 700 potential snow leopard, wolf or brown bear fecal samples in the next three months. After that, more training on metabarcoding will be given. Pg. 3

4 2015 Acknowledgments Collaborators Mongolia & Long-Term Ecological Study Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Mongolia Ministry of Nature Environment and Green Development Mongolia Academy of Science China ShanShui Conservation Center Panthera Beijing University India Union Ministry of Envrionment and Forests Himachal Pradesh Forest Department Kyrgyzstan Snow Leopard Foundation Kyrgyzstan Ministry of Environmental Protection Institute of Biology Sarychat-Ertash State Nature Reserve Pakistan Snow Leopard Foundation Pakistan Directorate of Khunjerab National Park Gilgit-Baltistan Forest & Wildlife Department Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Wildlife Department Climate-Change & Water Security Initiative WWF-US USAID Global Forum World Bank Global Tiger Initiative WWF-US USAID UNDP Office of the President of Kyrgyzstan NABU Snow Leopard Conservancy GEF SLN Snow Leopard Network Snow Leopard Conservancy Acacia Conservation Fund Partners

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