Hide and seek with the Mountain Ghost: Snow leopard

Following Mountain Ghost's Trail

An expedition to collect non-invasive samples of wild yaks (Bos mutus) and domestic yaks (Bos grunniens) for genetics study took us to the remote trans-Himalayas of upper Mustang. Yaks are high-altitude bovids specialized on vegetation growing only at high elevation meadows in the Tibetan Plateau. To meet our research motives, we ventured through challenging terrains, reaching to about 5,200 meters above sea level. The barren rocky cliffs, deep river valleys, steep and rolling terrains and alpine steppes in the trans-Himalayas were our home for 16 days.

We travelled through treacherous paths (I often found no paths at all). But the breath-taking and pristine landscapes made us forget all the hardships. No doubt, the ghosts of the mountains prowl in wake of dusk and dawn amidst the narrow gorges and the rocky terrains. As mythical as the Yeti, the snow leopards (Panthera uncia) are very difficult to see in their natural habitat as they are perfectly camouflaged in the mountain landscape, hence their nickname "The Mountain Ghost". Yet the presence of these magnificent cats could be felt through the signatures they left behind in form of scats, scrapes, and pugmarks. Reaching close to these signs in the intriguing terrains pose unavoidable challenges and difficulties. My regular experiences of tracking leopard (Panthera pardus) signs in the hills of Kathmandu have always been interesting. The diverse information on the “God's Pet” brought to my notice, by Naresh Kusi (my friend, brother & colleague), during our shared times always added to my fascination. Snow leopards are not much different from leopards, their mid-hill cousin. But the terrains they roam are stunning. I was seeing the hard and rocky surfaces, steep slopes, creepy and rough vegetation for the first time ever in my life and I was filled with joy and marvel to find myself amidst such a heart-warming landscape.

We walked up and down the cliffs but also had some relaxing moments in the flat Plateaus of the alpine steppes. But the 'Queen of the Himalayas' usually prefers to roam through the challenging precipices. Having come up all the way to such a pristine land, we could not let go the chances of revealing some tracks of the 'Phantom'. We endured the mountain spirit and ventured through the ghost's highway. Believe me; it was extremely adrenaline-rushing. I felt like giving up so many times.

Most of the signs we came across (scats in general) were old. We did find a couple of scrapes which gave us pleasant feeling to realize that the 'Ghost' was silently watching us from somewhere nearby. As days passed, we started descending towards a river valley traversing through gigantic cliffs and awe-inspiring gorges.

The second last camp set on the bank of Chodzong khola (river) in Chodzong valley had something in store for me. The moist soil (clay/sand) by the river bank presented a perfect place to look for pugmarks. Here Naresh dai and I chose different areas to explore; he climbed through an almost 75° slope to reach a table like depression among the mighty cliffs while I, having given up the seemingly dangerous attempt midway, roamed along the river banks. Like a stalking cat, I scanned through every crevice along the numerous cliff bases. Bingo! At the end of the soft sandy river bank my treasure hunt met its desired fate. A long reaching track of the snow leopard struck my eyes. I almost burst with tears of happiness to have finally located perfect pugmarks of the charismatic mountain cat. The fact that the animal might have had recently walked through the site, elevated my joy. This exciting moment of standing 'victorious' by the tracks of the mountain ghost carved an ecstatic imprint in my memory, which I will cherish for a long time ahead.


PHOTOS:

Pugmarks of snow leopard by a river bank:

















Scat deposits of snow leopard:

Scrape markings of snow leopard on its territory:

Remains of kills:

Domestic goat (Capra aegagrus hircus) with bite mark on throat

Skull of a blue sheep (Pseudois nayaur) (Nepali: Naur)

Habitat of snow leopard:

Our Horse Team members:

From left: Shakpa, Dhoma & Mhourro

===

EPILOGUE:

This expedition was led by Naresh Kusi, Researcher at Resources Himalaya Foundation (RHF) and Principal Investigator of Wild Yak Research project, funded by his individual Research Grant provided by The Rufford Foundation, UK. I joined him as project's Co-investigator and genetics/bioinformatics expert  from Center for Molecular Dynamics Nepal (CMDN). We were accompanied by Aakash Nath Upraity, Student researcher at University of Oregon. Additionally, our team was supplemented by Ramu dai (cook), Lakpa baje (horse man), and three horses.
Time: July/August 2017.

Special mentions (words of thanks):

Naresh Kusi, Researcher at RHF;

Dibesh Karmacharya, Executive Director at CMDN;

Sulochana Manandhar, Lab Manager at CMDN;
Ajay Narayan Sharma, Senior Research Associate at CMDN;

Jyoti Joshi, Wildlife Program Manager at CMDN;
Bishwo Parakarma Shrestha, Field Manager at CMDN;
And all my colleagues at CMDN.

*****

Leopards in Chandragiri landscape

Phantom of Kathmandu

Chandragiri landscape is a hilly range covering most of south-western ridge of Kathmandu valley. The hills are preserved by community forestry management, and are full of dense lush green hill forests. This landscape elevates from around 1500m asl to above 2500m asl with varying degree of vegetation types along the altitudinal gradients. It is an important biodiversity area, but not much of it has been studied in detail.

Leopards are largest wild carnivore and on top of the food chain in this landscape. They share their habitat throughout the landscape with humans along villages mostly in fringes and base of the hill range. Barking deer, wild boar, rhesus and assamese macaques could form the main prey base for leopards in this landscape. Stray or feral dogs roaming freely along the human settlements could also form one of the main urban prey options for leopards. Other sympatric carnivores include leopard cat, jungle cat, large indian civet, masked palm civet and golden jackal.

The indirect signs like scats, pugmarks and scratch marks of leopards are observed very often in the jungles of this landscape.  One day it so happened that I even felt a very fresh yet pungent smell of a spray or urine mark of leopard while walking a trail under canopy of the jungle. I felt the leopard could have been very near but never did I see it then. There are cases of leopards in conflict with people in and around the human settlements in the landscape. Settlement areas like Kirtipur, Matatirtha, Pharping, Chalnakhel are some of the regions around this landscape where leopards sneak into, mainly in search of domestic prey such as goats, stray cattle, pet animals and stray dogs.  Since Jan 2016 to Feb 2017, two leopards have been caught at two different occasions from local houses in Kirtipur and were released elsewhere in natural habitat; one leopard got killed in a man leopard conflict in Matatirtha; while another leopard died of an unidentified cause in Chalnakhel. This makes at least four leopards to have been removed from the area in just about one year time. We don’t know how many leopards still prowl this landscape, but it may not be long that they get to survive many generations to come.

PHOTOS:

FILE PHOTOS:

leopard captured after tranquilized in Kirtipur (Jan 2016).

Photo source: himalayan times

leopard rescued after tranquilized by Radha K Gharti, senior 

vet of zoo and kathmandu's professional leopard catcher

(Feb 2017).  Photo source: nepalireporter.com

*********

Owl festival and the fishing cat encounter !!!

Owl Festival 2017 at Jagadishpur Reservoir Ramsar site

I went to attend Nepal Owl Festival 2017 at Jagadishpur, Kapilvastu (mid-west lowland Nepal) along with my work colleague, Nagendra (Awasthi) dai. We traveled in night bus, and reached the festival site the next morning by 7am. The festival went well with nature and bird watching program early in the morning and followed by various cultural programmes later in the day. The Jagdishhpur reservoir is one huge wetland lake and a ramsar site important for numerous migratory and resident water birds.

During the birding sessions, over 30 species of birds were spotted that included bar-headed goose, bean goose, gray lag goose, asian open-bill, ruddy-shelduck, ferruginous duck to name some by expert birders. During the night, lot of calls of owls was heard. I was also excited about this place that it is a known habitat for fishing cats (Prionailurus viverrinus), they had been recorded (Sagar Dahal et al. 2014) in and around the lake area. Most of the time, I was wondering about their presence around and really wanted to go track their signs.

So, in this 2nd day of the festival after our morning birding session, I insisted Nagendra dai to go and hunt down their tracks in a nearby small shallow pond which was wet and easy to access. As we walked through the edges, a carnivore scat was encountered, which i believe should be of jackal (unsure), I didn't have the feeling of it to be of a felid because its morphology was quite different than my pet cat's feces (which I am much familiar with). As we went by, we spotted small felid pugmarks, it was a joyful moment. We went ahead, and again spotted even more fresh tracks in a pretty wet area of the pond. In this second encounter, you could also tell the path the cat walked through, it clearly looked as if the cat was climbing up the slope into the edge from the shallow area, the claw marks were intact in the tracks. I took photographs and GPS through my mobile device. As soon as we returned to the festival area, I showed it to Yadav (Ghimirey) dai, he confirmed it to be most likely of fishing cat based on habitat and size of the track. This made my day having tracked a fishing cat track. We attended the festival program and enjoyed our rest of the day in the festival area, I volunteered by putting owl stamp to children and adults too. The festival ended well with messages of owl conservation and awareness among the local communities with many other fun-filled local cultural and entertainment activities.

The next day, we were bound to return early morning. We woke up and got ready by 5.30am when we finally started to move towards bus stop. We had some really good friends who helped us in reaching bus stop at time (by waking up early themselves) by dropping us through bike. I and Nagendra dai started walking and almost covered half way to the bus stop when Kaushal (Yadav) dai took us in his bike (double-load). He was riding very slowly, and suddenly we noticed something move, there the guys started to shout out with joyous voices, then Kaushal bro called "fishing cat". It was a blessing moment of our journey I would say. As we were leaving the place, a fishing cat showed it to us, we were able to see it as it ran through the farm-field and into a bush nearby where it disappeared.

As we reached the bus stop, we excitingly informed it to Yadav dai, who was already there. This joyous moment wouldn't have been possible if Yadav dai had not insisted me to come to the festival. My huge thanks to him, and rest of all Friends of Nature team for organizing such a wonderful festival. This sighting was my second live sighting of a wild cat in the wild.

CITED ARTICLE:
Sagar Dahal et al, SMCRF (2014). Status of Fishing cat in Jagadishpur Reservoir and Ghodaghodi Lake and assessment of threat.

*****

PHOTOS:

Fig 1: habitat area (shallow pond), where we tracked for signs

Fig 2: pugmark spot 1

Fig 3: pugmark spot 2

Fig 4: pugmarks (claw-marks intact), claws would protract as the cat insist on climbing through slope

Fig 5: slope at edge of the pond, arrows showing tracks with claw-marks

Fig 6: carnivore scat in edge of the pond

Fig 7: Jagadishpur Reservoir

Fig 8: Map showing locations of pugmarks and live sighting of fishing cat (Google Earth Pro image)

Fig 9: Owl face painting was one of the attractions in the festival

*****