Ibex Rut = Thanksgiving for Snow Leopards

There hasn’t been much snow leopard activity in my collaring area lately. I do not know what is wrong, there were so many fresh scent marks and pugmarks when I came.

The only explanation I can see is that the ibex rut has started. At this time the ibex congregate in big herds and the males fight with each other. We find some big ibex males at the kill sites indicating that our collared cats take advantage of the males lowered vigilance. A snow leopard usually stay at the kill for five to seven days when they have brought down a big ibex. That’s all good, but there are no ibex in my study area. The plan was that we would catch the cats when they crossed the big valley–again, nothing wrong with that, unless the leopards are just lying still and burping ibex somewhere else…

I have started scouting my next study area, and I will move to the northwestern corner of our study area next (Shonkhor’s home range). I also had Zara McDonald, the founder of Felidae Foundation in camp for a week. We had a good time building collaring sites and setting out cameras.