SAYLYUGEMSKY NATIONAL PARK, Russia — If you fly to the most remote corner of Siberia, drive for nine hours, cross another 60 miles of ice and hills in a sturdy Soviet jeep and climb a mountain, you just may see a snow leopard. Or maybe its footprint. The endangered snow leopard is one of the most elusive and understudied of all big cats on the planet. But this may change, thanks to a pioneering survey launched last month that aims to compile an exact headcount of all snow leopards in Siberia, down to the last cub. It could be a crucial step in saving the felines, which are threatened by shrinking habitats, poachers’ snares and guns and Asian traditional medicine. “All of us like cats, of course. But it’s not just a cat, it’s an indication of the health of an ecosystem,” said Dmitry Burenko, director of development at WWF Russia, speaking to NBC News in the Saylyugemsky National Park in the Altai mountains. If that’s true, the ecosystem of Altai — a Russian republic in southern Siberia — is definitely in trouble. Its arid, windswept ridges host a population of 200,000 people in an area the size of Indiana. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and one million tourists flock here every year to ride horses, kayak or hike. A female snow leopard at a zoo in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. Ilya Naymushin / Reuters But between winter temperatures of minus 40 degrees, cutting winds and elevation of up to…more detail
