During a Facebook Live event yesterday with Matthias Fiechter and Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi of the Snow Leopard Trust, I learned of a new video from PBS Nature. This excellent, 10-minute film is called Living with Snow Leopards – Tashi’s Story.
Living with Snow Leopards follows Tashi, a local herder, as he cares for his goats and tries to keep warm in the Indian Himalayas. As the film describes Tashi’s story, it also highlights broader aspects of snow leopard (Panthera uncia) conservation and ecology. It touches on the imperiled status of the species, mentions threats such as mining and the loss of wild prey, and discusses the relationships between local herders and the cats.
Living with Snow Leopards makes it clear that villagers and snow leopards do not always get along. As livestock outcompete the cats’ natural prey, snow leopards become more likely to attack domestic animals. When this happens, the end result is often a financial loss for already impoverished people and a dead snow leopard.
Fortunately, groups like the Snow Leopard Trust are working to make it easier for villagers to coexist with snow leopards. By building strong relationships, helping to create livestock insurance schemes, initiating alternative livelihood programs, and more, these groups are benefitting both wildlife and local people. Living with Snow Leopards again uses Tashi to illustrate this point, explaining that he and his neighbors have stopped killing the big cats.
Cinematically speaking, Living with Snow Leopards is also a beautiful film. It features crisp and well-defined shots of the Himalayan landscape, wildlife, Tashi, and other villagers as they go about their days. This makes the film pleasing to watch, and its short duration will not take up much of your time.
Here is PBS Nature’s Living with Snow Leopards – Tashi’s Story. For more information, including the full credits, please visit the video’s website.
The Jaguar 
Reblogged this on Meredith Gibraltar Blog.
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Thanks for sharing, this looks really interesting.
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Thanks River! Feel free to check out the video, it’s only 10 minutes long.
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I will for sure.
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Excellent video and good to hear how the conservation works for both the villagers & Snow Leopard.
Thanks for posting.
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No problem, David! Many conservation projects dealing with snow leopards are collaborative like this, which is great to see.
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Reblogged this on joliesattic and commented:
I hope you like this as much as I did.
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Wow! Impressive. If all conservation programs could be as effective.
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Yes, it’d be great if all conservation programs could enjoy the same level of success as some of the Snow Leopard Trust’s. It probably helps that they’ve spent years building solid relationships with local villagers.
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I think building relationships and shutting out the “noise” is key, for sure. Who is it that says, “teamwork makes the dream work?”
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Apparently it was a guy called John Maxwell:
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/john_c_maxwell_600892
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Excellent for both the leopard and the herder; wonderful Trust – geez those leopards are gorgeous. Thanks so much for sharing this great video.
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Yes, the Snow Leopard Trust does great work. They’re not the only group that’s making a difference in regard to snow leopards: Panthera and the Snow Leopard Conservancy are worth checking out as well.
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Thank you.
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My pleasure!
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How wonderful, I love it when life works like this we can all find ways to coexist with the beautiful animals all around us, there’s enough room and space for all of us, so we humans should stop trying to hog it all away.
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It is nice when projects work out this well, since not all of them do. Of course, the Snow Leopard Trust has probably faced difficulties that aren’t immediately obvious in the film.
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there’s hardly any success stories without a few glitches here and there but successful projects like this give hope that all is not lost.
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Exactly!
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ONE OF FAVORITES.
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Yea, this is a great video. Unfortunately, wildlife conservation can seriously disadvantage (often already marginalized) people if it’s not done carefully, so it’s good to see that some groups are trying to work with local people and figure out how to make conservation less burdensome for them.
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