Records & People

Snow Leopards Vanished From the Everest Region in the 1960s. A DNA Study Just Found 24 Living There Again

Sagarmatha National Park is famous for one mountain — but genetic testing shows the ghost cats that disappeared from its slopes two generations ago…

By Laxman Rawal · Aug 13, 2026

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Most of the million-plus people who search for Everest every month are picturing one thing: a mountain. Almost none of them know that the national park built around it lost its most elusive predator in the 1960s — and that scientists have only recently…

Travel Himalaya Nepal · News

How the cats came back

Snow leopards disappear from the area that would become Sagarmatha National Park. Sagarmatha National Park is created around Mount Everest — without any resident snow leopards. Recognised for both its mountain scenery and its biodiversity. A single track is…

Travel Himalaya Nepal · News

What this means for trekkers

Will you actually see one? Almost certainly not — snow leopards are famously elusive, mostly nocturnal, and now number roughly two dozen across an area larger than New York City. But trekkers on the Everest Base Camp and Gokyo Lakes routes are, without…

Travel Himalaya Nepal · News

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