Prey preferences of the snow leopard (Panthera uncia)

Applying the prey-preference framework to high-mountain Asia, Lyngdoh and colleagues compiled snow leopard diet records across the species' range and weighted them by prey availability. They found snow leopards prefer prey weighing roughly 36-76 kg, with strong selection for Siberian ibex and blue sheep (bharal), and identified domestic goats and Himalayan marmots as important secondary items. The analysis quantified regional diet specificity and showed how reliance on a few wild ungulates makes snow leopards vulnerable to prey depletion and competition with livestock grazing. The derived preferred-prey window supports prey-based density estimation and conservation planning across the fragmented, data-poor mountain ranges these cats inhabit, and rounds out the cross-felid comparative series.