WWF: Climate change could push endangered snow leopards over the edge

However, it is estimated that approximately 4,000 snow leopards remain today.

“Urgent action is needed to curb climate change and prevent further degradation of snow leopard habitat, otherwise the “ghost of the mountains” could vanish, along with critical water supplies for hundreds of millions of people”, biologist Rishi Kumar Sharma, who is leading the WWF Global Snow Leopard project, said in a press release.

Preserving the species would be a plus for humanity.

Efforts to contain the vanishing species of the endangered cat species that inhabit the mountain ranges of South and Central Asia translate to helping humans as well as other exotic wildlife. Water contributed by monsoons, summer season rains, melting glaciers, winter storms, and permafrost are a part of a posh water system that kinds the headwaters of greater than 20 water basins that contribute to the water provides of 21 nations, together with China. This cycle affects 21 countries in the area, including China, which is particularly vulnerable.

Those plants won’t be able to properly feed and maintain the prey upon which snow leopards feast, and will also have big effects on the water supply derived from these mountains.

Figures from the WWF’s “Snow Leopard SOS” campaign state that numbers have dropped more than 20 percent over the last two decades, leaving as few as 4000 of the creatures in the wild.

“It’s bleak, but it surely’s not hopeless”. “Rising temperatures and volatile weather expedite glacial melt and change water availability, which also puts pressure on local and downstream communities and agricultural productivity”.

Central Intelligence Agency agent and environmentalist Peter Matthiessen spent months hiking in Nepal searching for a snow leopard in the 1970s, but failed to spot one of the mysterious cats. The terrain where snow leopards exist is now confined mainly to the Himalayas and Tibet.

Snow leopards are not the only ones that will be at risk as these high-altitude habitat sustains as many as 330 million people and with climate change capable of drastically altering the rivers originating in snow leopard territory, livelihoods of millions of people is at stake.

It helps that we humans now have a better idea of how these cats live, even though they’re still notoriously hard to spot. “The big takeaway I have, after 15 years in this field, is that it’s a false choice”. People share that landscape with those cats. The country’s Issyk-Kul lake is said to have derived its salt content from the tears of the snow leopard. The landmark agreement signalled an unprecedented level of commitment to conserve the snow leopard as well as a new era of collaboration between governments, worldwide organizations and civil society groups. Past year for the first time, cat lovers across the world celebrated October 23 and the conservation community was more committed than ever to save the beloved cat from extinction.