Photo Credit: Armonie Cohen-Solal ~~~~~
Camouflage, stealth, fierceness, and power.
Look carefully in the image above. You should be able to see the body of the ibex, partly concealed by a boulder, and the crouching snow leopard (schan).
This large adult snow leopard (~45 kg) took down a huge male ibex just outside Tar village. It was late April, and plowing was almost completed.
Our friend Armonie found and followed the trail which led several hundred meters down the valley, showing the depth of the struggle that ensued when the snow leopard seized this ibex. She found trails of blood and big long scrapes from horns or feet.
Photo Credit: Alexandra Lofgren
All of us got to watch this snow leopard eating and resting over the course of seven days and nights, defending this precious sustenance from the local red foxes and magpies and vultures. As dusk began, one evening, this leopard began to tear at the body, ripping meat and organs upward and swallowing them down. The schan ate quickly for twenty minutes or so, and then rested once again as night settled in.
In the morning, we saw that this schan had eaten again during the night. The schan then rested for most of the day, and seemed to eat mostly by night.
Such a fortunate moment, these seven days. We watched each day from a nearby ridge, about 200m away, using binoculars. All of these photos were taken through binoculars and scopes. We kept a respectful distance, not wanting to disturb this living being whose life depends on this food. The snow leopard watched us sometimes, but also ignored us and napped a lot.
We both encountered and tracked a group of four snow leopards this winter many times around Tar. They crossed the slopes and left their footprints in the snow. They walked the same paths as we do when we travel up to our home from the village. They helped eat a dzo that had died and that men of the village including Jason hauled out of the stables and away from the houses for the wild animals to eat.
This schan was alone, though.
People tell us that a group of schan is almost certainly a mother with cubs, usually 1-3 cubs, who stay with her for up to two years before they go off to find their own territories.
Our guess is that this schan is a fifth, perhaps the resident male, whose range overlaps with this female and her family.
This is from one of the smaller schan we tracked this winter.
These are adult-sized tracks from the winter before, showing their stride, alongside my size 13 (47) boots.
And here is an adult track from this winter, 11 Feb 2024, before the snows fell, in this unusually dry winter.
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