There’s No Leopards Like Snow Leopards…

Excerpt from:
Plastic: There’s No Leopards Like Snow Leopards…
Thus, illegal poaching constitutes one direct threat to the animal. Another threat is the loss of habitat to desperately poor farmers and herders. These people, living on the margin as it is, kill leopards either to reduce leopards using their farm animals as prey or for the income the leopard pelt will bring. Professor Oleg Mitropolsky, a zoologist working in Uzbekistan, says the GEF project has had a profound effect in improving basic services to farm communities. Farmers and herders have also been persuaded that alternative crops and products can produce income for them without encroaching on the snow leopard’s habitat. According to Mitropolsky, other illegal poaching has been discouraged due to activities funded by the project.