Sept 15, 2010:
The first camera traps have now been set out in the Argut Valley, near the Russia-Mongolia border and thought to harbor the Altai’s best snow leopard population. It’s a very remote area — I had to ride a horse for 40 kilometers over difficult trails, along a surging glacial river with cliffs towering high above us. 12 hours on a saddle, enough to give one a sore bum and very stiff knees, especially if one’s cowboy knowledge comes from the movies! Just how do horses walk across river rocks without sliding or falling all over the place? These ones, almost as large as Arabian stallions were truly amazing.
The river, along with the nearby Katun (which in turn feeds into Russia’s longest river) is a favorite for white-water rafters. However, the Argut has a reputation for being highly dangerous and thus is recommended only for the most experienced rafters (most are domestic visitors right now, riding on strange pontoons rather than the rubber rafts we are familiar with). High above we catch glimpses of ibex, a wild goat that is the main prey of snow leopards across its range in Russia, Mongolia and other central Asian states. That’s a good sign — or should be.
Camped at the confluence of a large stream, which was too deep and fast-flowing even for these horses. Too bad for the best snow leopard habitat clearly was on the other side! I slept under the stars beside some nice alder trees, the sound of rapids in background, golden eagles soaring overhead during the day, owls and bats at night. Spent the next 5 days setting up cameras on high ridges, where we hoped they will capture leopard images, as well as any of the outsiders said to poach ibex in the area in the fall. Let’s see that Sergei, Misha and the villagers I trained come up with. They will return and check the cameras at the end of September, so watch our website for news.
Clearing hunting, legal and illegal, is deeply rooted in the Russian culture and psyche, for one so rarely sees wildlife driving the nicely paved roads or walking forest and grassland trails. This is why we are establishing a partnership with several schools to promote awareness. Hey kids, let your parents know that you want your kids to see snow leopards and ibex! Frankly, I am ashamed by my generation, who seem to treat the Earth so recklessly. We have to charge that — but need your help. Even small action can make a major difference, and help build momentum. Our first event is Snow Leopard Day, set for next May. My fantasy would be to connect kids on both continents, and include shamans or traditional elders and diviners in the process.
My next message will cover work in Mongolia — I crossed by road, quite an experience. All to collect the poop of snow leopards in the Altay-Sayan Mountains of Central Asia.
August 19, 2010:
Mongolia in summer is very different from winter-time. Warm, green, with puffy clouds and outdoor events and everyone heading for the countryside from the city.
Our group includes my partner Darla Hillard (SLC’s Education Director), Dr. Apela Colorado an Native America elder who specializes in networking elder healers, shamans and sacred place protectors across the globe, and Tony Acosta, a Mexican filmmaker, Erjen Khamaganova (program officer with The Christensen Fund) and I (SLC founder and Indianapolis finalist). Our route is from Ulaanbaatar to Lake Baikal and the Altai region of Russia along Mongolia’s border, then back home via Ulaanbaatar.
We are here to network with elders and shamans with the aim of returning the snow leopard as a powerful spiritual force (see below for project description), and to train park rangers and villagers in camera trapping so that they might monitor snow leopard and prey populations.
Here in the Mongolian and Russian Altai, the indigenous communities have retained traditional knowledge and culture to a degree not found elsewhere in Central Asia. Nonetheless, guardians of the region’s sacred sites are under great environmental, political and religious pressures. The Snow Leopard Conservancy (SLC) is collaborating with the Worldwide Indigenous Science Network (WISN) in a project focused on sacred sites and revitalizing communities to again promote strong, positive engagement with the high mountain ecology. Networking is one of WISN’s primary goals; as a way of keeping guardians in touch with others facing similar challenges. Networking also creates a critical level of cultural identity, global community, and the empowerment for the local guardians to continue their work of earth stewardship. The Conservancy will assist in building a body of educational activities and materials aimed at bringing back the snow leopard as central to the culture, and vital to the cascade of environmental relationships and consequences generated by a top predator.
Our journey started in Ulaanbaatar (UB) on August 4th, with meetings with community leaders and NGO’s involved in nature education and a visit to a shaman who serves as the protector of UB’s sacred mountain. We are traveling with Erjen Khamaganova of the Christensen Fund, who works to help Mongolians and Baryut people maintain their unique culture. Later, after breakfast (mutton spaghetti) at the International Children’s Center — Naidam, we talked about the waning nature awareness among Mongolia’s youth. They are attracted by western clothing, values and technology, texting on cell phones as I showed them images of one of the rarest cats in the world. But their attention was soon captured by a snow leopard caught on remote video in Ladakh, India as it wipes a camera lens with its paw (see film Silent Roar: in search of the snow leopard).
On Aug 7 we flew to the Russian city of Ulan Ude near Lake Baikal for the 500 km drive to the Eastern Syan Mountains and remote hamlet of Akha, a community that considers the snow leopard to be their protector animal. It’s the only part of Russia where the entire district is a national park, and where their own indigenous language is taught in school. But ibex, musk deer and other horned animals that provide the snow leopard with food have been very severely depleted due to poaching. Every household has a gun, and sees it as their right to hunt animals. Further pressure comes from illegal border trade with Mongolia and China.
We found a common language in talking about conservation, especially of school children. Students of the Akha school excel in science, having won many national prizes. They are the best means for educating their parents and returning their eastern Siberian mountains back to their former importance as far as snow leopards are concerned.
On Aug 12 we drove on to Irkutsk, on the Angara River that drains Baikal and is the world’s longest drainage, where I meet with Dr. Egevny Kosharev, one of Russia’s leading snow leopard experts whom I had met back in 1989 before the dissolution of the USSR. He emphasized the urgency to act quickly to save snow leopards and their unique mountain ecosystem, calling for cooperation and the public to voice their concern, and to act to remove corrupt officials. Economic conditions are slowly improving in the rural parts of Russia, so there is hope.
From here we flew to Novosibirsk, a major city north of the Kazakhzstan border for the 750 km drive to the Gorno-Altai Republic, considered by indigenous people to be the cradle-place of Russia’s snow leopard population. The landscape was flat wheat-lands with sunflowers, like Kansas or western Washington. We crossed a massive river, and entered a land of incredible beauty. Altai borders along the far west of Mongolia, and again and again, driving along well-paved roads, I imagined ourselves to be in Montana, with its rolling hills of pine and other conifers, interspersed with verdant perennial grasslands, clean-flowing streams and picturesque settlements. How different from my visits in the Himalaya, where I often have to trek by foot for a week just to reach the cat’s habitat!
August 14: Leaving the main city, our first stop was at the Uch Enmek Nature Park, an amazingly green and spectacular valley with three settlements, the main being Karakul. The last place named Karakul that I visited was located in Tajikistan, the far western limit of snow leopards. Now we are near the northern limits. Long days, warm mornings, late afternoon thunderstorms, ever-changing sky light, just like the white and black patterns of a snow leopard.
Last night, Darla and I had the honor of attending a special fire ceremony given by elders from Altai and Kyrgzstan, another important country whose snow leopard numbers plummeted with the fall of the USSR, and people’s desperate poverty — suddenly a snow leopard pelt was worth a fortune on the black market. Ceremonies honoring special animals and places were prohibited during Soviet times. So the local villagers have to re-learn their cultural heritage and indigenous customs. Many are amazed that the outside world shows such interest in the snow leopard, which the elders say is the guardian spirit of Karakul valley.
My next messages will cover how we and our partners are working with local teachers to promote conservation education, and a 5-day horse-ride into the Argut Valley which has the highest concentration of the cats. How many will we catch on camera-trap I wonder?
