Records & People

Nepal Has 397 Snow Leopards - and GPS Collars Just Caught Them Sneaking Into China and India

The Himalayan nation's first-ever national census reveals a healthy population of the world's most elusive big cat - one that ignores international…

By Dawa Sherpa · Jul 20, 2026

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One collared snow leopard crossed into Tibet and back seven times without anyone in Kathmandu knowing it had left the country. Another patrolled a range of 312 square kilometres of Kanchenjunga's cliffs and glacier moraine, alone. For an animal so elusive…

Travel Himalaya Nepal · News

A count 60 years overdue

Nepal has been considered a stronghold for Panthera uncia for decades, but until 23 April 2025 nobody had ever put a firm number on the national population. The estimate - a joint effort by the government's Department of National Parks and Wildlife…

Travel Himalaya Nepal · News

The cats with no respect for a border

The population count answered one question; a smaller, stranger study answered another. Between 2013 and 2017, WWF Nepal researchers fitted GPS collars on four snow leopards in the Kangchenjunga Conservation Area and tracked them for between 20 and 659 days…

Travel Himalaya Nepal · News

What this means for trekkers

What this means for you Your odds of actually spotting one on a trek remain slim - that is rather the point of an animal that can vanish into scree at twenty paces. But the same conservation economics that made this count possible are concentrated exactly…

Travel Himalaya Nepal · News

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