Chapter 13 - Snow leopard, common leopard, and wolf: Are they good neighbors?

Abstract

Rigorous environmental conditions, lower primary productivity, and limited habitat diversity of ecologically poor areas inhabited by snow leopards work against rich prey communities compared to those of other large carnivores at lower elevations and latitudes. The bigger, adaptable common leopard and gregarious wolf can meet snow leopards at intermediate elevations, triggering potential competition. While some data exist on diet and habitat overlap between the wolf and the snow leopard, information is very limited for common and snow leopards. Several studies have indicated that diet overlap between snow leopard and wolf ranges between 0.7 and 0.9, on a 0–1 scale, thus showing a high overlap value and confirming the potential for competition. Conversely, in a Himalayan area with unusually high presence of wild prey (n=7), the overlap plummeted to 0.4, suggesting prey partitioning. On the other hand, common and snow leopards appear to avoid interspecific aggression through habitat separation and perhaps activity rhythms, where they are syntopic, rather than exploitation of different prey, which may have allowed the coexistence of these two potentially competing large cats. A comparison of breadth of large carnivore diets, across areas with different prey richness, has shown that, contrary to the common leopard and to the wolf, the snow leopard tends to use a lower number of large prey species along with increasing prey diversity. Over evolutionary time, the coexistence with potentially superior competitors, such as the gray wolf or the leopard, and probably tigers, may have pushed the snow leopard into hardly accessible, marginal areas and forced it to specialize on local prey. Climate change is pushing treeline higher, and an average of 30% of snow leopard habitat will be lost in the Himalayas. One could expect that large carnivores living in forests will increase their elevational distribution and increase potential competition with the snow leopard.