India is home to around 718 snow leopards, according to the first-ever population estimation exercise conducted by the Snow Leopard Population Assessment in India (SPAI) Programme.
The highest number of snow leopards were recorded in Ladakh (477), followed by Uttarakhand (124), Himachal Pradesh (51), Arunachal Pradesh (36), Sikkim (21), and Jammu and Kashmir (9), reveals the report released by the Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav on Tuesday.
The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) was the National Coordinator for the exercise that was carried out with the support of all snow leopard range states and two conservation partners, the Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysuru, and WWF-India.
Until recent years, the snow leopard range in India was undefined due to a lack of extensive nationwide assessments for this vulnerable species. Before 2016, approximately one-third of the range (around ca. 100,347 square kilometres) received minimal research attention, reduced to…