China Counts Over 1,000 Snow Leopards in Largest Ever Survey
China has published the world’s largest peer-reviewed study and survey of snow leopards, in the Sanjiangyuan region in the northwestern Qinghai province. The survey estimates 1,002 snow leopards, accounting for more than 10% of the known global population of this threatened species.
The study, published last month in the journal Biodiversity and Conservation, also marks the first large-scale assessment of the snow leopard population in China.
From 2015 to 2021, a joint research team — including Peking University, Shan Shui Conservation Center, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Plateau Nature Conservancy, Nyanpo Yutse Conservation Association, and local communities — conducted the study across 360,000 square kilometers, an area roughly the size of Japan.
“Snow leopards are crucial top predators and important indicators of ecosystem integrity,” Zhao Xiang, director of conservation at Shan Shui Conservation Center, told state broadcaster CCTV.
“Establishing a monitoring system, assessing population size, and effectively understanding their role in the ecosystem are the first steps in conservation,” Zhao added.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies snow leopards as a “vulnerable” species, whose numbers are in decline. Currently, an estimated 7,446 to 7,996 snow leopards remain in the wild worldwide, including 2,710 to 3,386 mature individuals capable of breeding.
Their population decline is primarily driven by poaching for skins, habitat loss from road construction and mineral extraction, climate change, and human-wildlife conflict, particularly from livestock depredation.
These big cats are primarily found across 12 countries along the Himalayas, with 60% of the global population concentrated in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, as well as in Xizang, Qinghai, Gansu, and Sichuan provinces.
“The Himalayan region is also experiencing the effects of climate change, and in recent years, snow leopard conservation has become closely tied to climate adaptation efforts,” Zhao said.
The snow leopard study focused on Sanjiangyuan, north of the Himalaya’s eastern tip and deep in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, which is the headwaters of the Yangtze, Yellow, and Mekong rivers.
Its abundant water resources support lush grassland ecosystems, sustaining blue sheep, the snow leopard’s primary prey. And the vast, continuous mountain ranges provide extensive and connected habitats, making it one of the most densely populated snow leopard regions in China and globally, according to Zhao.
Researchers sampled 28.2% of the total habitat area, surpassing the 20% benchmark set for international snow leopard surveys.
From 12 long-term monitoring sites, they recorded nearly 10,000 independent snow leopard activity events, step by step.
“The first step is what we call ‘empty screening’ — removing infrared camera footage that didn’t capture any animals. The second step is identifying what animals were recorded, which could include snow leopards, wolves, Tibetan foxes, and brown bears. The third step is distinguishing individual snow leopards,” Zhao explained.
“Currently, AI assists with the first two steps, improving efficiency. However, the third step — identifying individual snow leopards — still mainly relies on the human eye.”
Individual snow leopards are primarily distinguished by analyzing the black rosette-shaped patterns on their gray-white fur, cross-referenced with genetic data extracted from collected feces.
“For each snow leopard, we select three specific body parts. Only when all three match perfectly do we confirm it as the same individual,” Zhao told CCTV.
“The process is double-checked — two people independently complete the identification before cross-verifying. Only when both reach the same conclusion do we confirm the result.”
Using population models, the study identified 110,000 square kilometers of potentially suitable snow leopard habitat — about one-third of the observed area — with an estimated density of 0.9 individuals per 100 square kilometers in the surveyed region.
Globally, snow leopard densities range from 0.32 to 6.2 individuals per 100 square kilometers.
In China, snow leopards are granted “first-class” protection, the highest level in the country, with local governments, nonprofits, and some conservationists working together on their preservation.
“Before 2005, snow leopards had almost disappeared from Qinghai’s Sanjiangyuan region. It wasn’t until 2012 that staff at the Sanjiangyuan National Nature Reserve started capturing footage of snow leopards again,” Li Xiaonan, director of the Qinghai Forestry and Grassland Bureau, said in 2021.
With technological advancements and improved conservation efforts, snow leopard sightings increased in subsequent years. In 2017, a county in Qinghai province established a 2.5-kilometer-radius special conservation zone after a pair of snow leopard cubs were spotted in the area for the first time.
The study also claimed to establish a feasible workflow for large-scale population assessments, which could be applied to future snow leopard surveys across broader regions and even serve as a technical reference for studying other species.
Previously, the largest peer-reviewed snow leopard survey, which covered over 26,000 square kilometers in India, was published in 2020. In 2021, a survey in Mongolia spanned 480,000 square kilometers, but was not formally published in a peer-reviewed journal.
“Going forward, we hope to continue research on several key areas, including the interactions between snow leopards and other species, the impact of climate change on snow leopard populations, the competition between blue sheep — their primary prey — and livestock for grazing land, as well as the relationship between snow leopards and humans,” Zhao said.
Editor: Apurva.
(Header image: A snow leopard in Sanjiangyuan National Park, Qinghai province, Nov. 9, 2023. VCG)
