A Snow Leopard’s Fate
Snow Leopard’s Close Extinction
Snow leopards have evolved throughout the years to live in the harshest conditions on Earth, their white-gray coated spotted with black dots helps them keep warm and helps them blend in to Asia’s high mountains, which is their natural habitat. They also have incredible camouflage, making them as if they’re invisible in their surroundings. Their powerful build allows them to jump very high slopes with ease, they can leap as far as six times the length of their body. It’s long tail provides them with protection from the cold, provides balance, and enables agility. Snow leopards were the king of the mountains for thousands of years due to the mountain’s abundance of prey, which makes them superior to other species.
Their fur-covered feet act as snowshoes and their powerful legs make them tremendous jumpers. Even with their powerful traits, they are very shy and reclusive and tend to hide away, which makes them hard to find in the wild. The color of their fur comes in shades of gray or creamy yellow.
Snow leopards were listed as endangered in 1986 and in 2017, they have been one step below endangered, meaning that they are vulnerable to extinction. According to the IUCN, the snow leopard population is constantly decreasing and is facing a higher risk of extinction. It is unknown to how many are left in the world, but it is estimated that there are between 2,710 and 3,386 of them, although there have been calculated to be between 4,500 and 7,500 of them living in the cold and high mountains of Central and South Asia.
The reason to this big decline of snow leopards are the biggest threats that they are still currently facing to this day. Climate change, overhunting, habitat loss, poaching and many other influences have been a threat to the snow leopard population. Human-wildlife contact and climate change are a major threat to snow leopards as they are the reason of habitat loss.
Snow leopards are actually not aggressive to humans, even if they are disturbed while feeding, they’ll more likely run away than defend their site. They are also carnivores and mostly eat argali, blue sheep and ibex. Female snow leopards who are single about 18 months, raise their cubs all alone.
Related Stories:
https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/snow-leopard
https://www.treehugger.com/are-snow-leopards-endangered-5072563
