Pakistan's Snow Leopards.

Abstract

The Snow Leopard and the Goat. Hussain, S. 2019. University of Washington Press, Seattle, U.S.A. xix+ 217 pp. US$30.00 (paperback). ISBN 978-0-295-74657-9. Resolving pressures on wildlife requires local support, and that generally comes down to economics. In the case of the mountainous regions of Pakistan, trophy hunting of markhor (Capra falconeri) and ibex (Capra ibex), plus compensation of pastoralists for predation on domestic animals by snow leopards (Panthera uncia), are helping to reduce the loss of wildlife. Over the past 20 years, the author of The Snow Leopard and the Goat has been actively involved in an innovative compensation scheme, whereby about half the funds come from the herdsmen themselves as an insurance premium, and the other half from external sources (including, before 2001 tourist income). He has also studied snow leopards, concluding that numbers in Pakistan have been stable at 300–400 over the past 20 years and form perhaps 5% of the world's population. He recognizes that these numbers are uncertain and controversial. Despite 1400 papers and reports on the snow leopard over the past 40 years, the species is exceptionally hard to study. Nevertheless, those 1400 contributions demonstrate intense interest in conserving the snow leopard. With so many organizations involved, conflicts are rife, especially over competition for funds and how they should be used. As part of the collateral, we may be moving to increasing the resentment of pastoralists to conservation organizations, which wish to impose restrictions on land use. This book offers no strong solutions, but traces the history up to where we are now in an engaging and well-written account, straddling anthropology, biology, and sociology. Why do we care so much about conserving the snow leopard? Respect for the snow leopard in Pakistan traces through its religious past, including the locally extinct Bon religion, which sees sentience in high animals aligned with those of humans. British hunters in the 19th and early 20th centuries wanted to hunt snow leopards (even if they mostly lamented their inability to get a shot in at such an elusive species). We would like future generations to be able to see them. But the Global Snow Leopard Forum in October 2013, which has defined the past 8 years of debate, emphasized both the snow leopard and its habitat. The meeting was designated as “an international effort to save the snow leopard and conserve high-mountain ecosystems.” Large predators may aid conservation by being umbrella species, which require large intact habitats to persist (Caro, 2003). A second justification now comes from the demonstrable role of large predators in limiting herbivore populations; there are many examples where predator removal generated trophic cascades and habitat degradation (Estes et al., 2011). The author notes the above points, but this book is more about people and the snow leopard. The artificially high density of domestic animals grazing in the summer months clearly causes much habitat degradation, probably more than any trophic cascade could. I am most familiar with the scene in Himachal Pradesh, India, where the total number of livestock grazed at high elevations in the summer is increasing as lowland villagers’ wealth increases such that they can afford to send more animals out over the summer months (see also Namgail et al., 2007 and Joshi, 2020). The increase is coupled with technological advances, such as coordination through the use of mobile phones, that enable more efficient use of grazing lands. Given that impacts are high, the ultimate solution must surely require a reduction in pastoralism. In Pakistan, Hussain suggests that as people get richer and less interested in the hard life of pastoralism, this livelihood may already be declining. Ironically, he notes that livestock, which provided 70% of the snow leopard's prey in a study he was involved in, help maintain snow leopard populations. Further, trophy hunting may have increased markhor and ibex populations, but it has also contributed to vilification of the snow leopard for the wild animals it consumes. Nothing is ever straightforward.