🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Protecting continuous elevation gradients lets species shift upslope as climate warms while staying within protected habitat, a recurring strategy for montane regions. This overview surveys the ration…

Snow leopard reproduction is shaped by the brief alpine summer and the harshness of the high-mountain environment. This overview synthesizes what is known about their breeding season, the use of shelt…

This overview examines efforts to revive the traditional Mongolian Bankhar livestock-guarding dog as a tool for reducing depredation by snow leopards, wolves, and other predators on the steppe and in…

GPS satellite collars have transformed understanding of snow leopard ecology, revealing that these cats range over far larger areas than once assumed. This overview surveys telemetry research showing…

Solitary snow leopards communicate across their vast ranges through scent marks placed at conspicuous sites. This overview synthesizes research on how snow leopards spray scent on overhanging rocks, m…

Snow leopards shift their use of the mountains seasonally, often following the movements of their prey up and down the slopes. This overview synthesizes tracking studies showing how snow leopards desc…

This overview examines human-snow leopard conflict on the Mongolian steppe and mountains, where mobile pastoralists herding goats, sheep, yaks, and horses overlap with snow leopards across vast rangel…

Across the high mountains of Asia, snow leopards and pastoralists overlap, and depredation on livestock drives conflict central to the cat's conservation. This overview synthesizes studies on the patt…

Across the high mountains of Asia, snow leopards prey on domestic sheep, goats, and yaks, creating conflict with herding communities whose livelihoods depend on their animals. This overview surveys re…

This survey reviews how snow leopard species distribution models are run across contrasting greenhouse-gas emissions pathways to bracket the range of plausible future habitat. It explains how downscal…

Genetic studies of snow leopards have sought to characterize diversity and structure across a range spanning the Himalaya, Tibetan Plateau, and Central Asian mountains. This overview surveys research,…

Snow leopards inhabit the high mountains of Central and South Asia, selecting steep, broken terrain that aids stalking and escape. This overview synthesizes telemetry and survey studies showing that s…

GPS collaring has transformed understanding of snow leopard spatial ecology, revealing far larger home ranges than earlier studies suggested. This overview synthesizes tracking work, notably from Mong…

This overview synthesises studies of snow leopard predation on livestock across the mountains of Central and South Asia, from Ladakh and Spiti to the Pamirs and Mongolia. It reviews patterns of loss,…

Snow leopards are killed and traded for their thick pelts and their bones, the latter increasingly drawn into the same markets that consume tiger and lion bone. This overview surveys research on snow…

Snow leopards occur at naturally low density across a patchy, mountainous range, so climate-driven habitat fragmentation poses a real risk to gene flow. This overview surveys what noninvasive genetic…

Snow leopards inhabit some of the most remote, rugged, high-altitude terrain on Earth, making camera trapping one of the few feasible ways to estimate their numbers. This overview surveys the methods…

An overview of the snow leopard's dependence on a few wild mountain ungulates, chiefly blue sheep (bharal) and Siberian ibex, across the high ranges of Central Asia. These prey constitute the core of…

The arid mountains of Mongolia and the Gobi support an important snow leopard population at the dry edge of the species' climate envelope. This overview surveys how warming and changing precipitation…

Snow leopards depend heavily on mountain ungulates, especially blue sheep and ibex, across their range. This overview synthesizes diet studies showing that these wild caprids form the core of the snow…

Snow leopards depend primarily on wild mountain ungulates such as blue sheep, ibex, argali, and marmots, and the health of these prey populations governs snow leopard numbers. This overview surveys re…

The grain and extent at which a habitat model is built strongly influence its conclusions, a key consideration for wide-ranging cats. This overview surveys how the choice of spatial resolution, from c…

In endangered cats, individual temperament can determine reproductive success and welfare in managed-care programs. This overview surveys research extending the cheetah findings to other species, exam…

The Population Assessment of the World's Snow Leopards, known as PAWS, is a coordinated international effort to produce the first robust, range-wide estimate of snow leopard numbers using standardized…

Snow leopards are among the hardest big cats to count, and their global population remains poorly known. This overview synthesizes the methodological challenges of surveying a cryptic, low-density cat…

The snow leopard belongs to the roaring lineage yet does not roar, and this overview reviews this exception and what it reveals. Although a member of Panthera, the snow leopard lacks the fully develop…

In 2017 the snow leopard was reclassified on the IUCN Red List from Endangered to Vulnerable, a decision based on revised population estimates and the difficulty of demonstrating that numbers had fall…

Rugged terrain creates a mosaic of microclimates, with cool, shaded, or moist pockets that can buffer species against regional warming, a key idea for montane cats. This overview surveys how topograph…

This overview synthesises research on whether wildlife-tourism revenue increases local tolerance for big cats by offsetting conflict costs. It reviews cases from jaguar tourism in the Pantanal, lion t…

Beyond distribution models, conservationists use structured climate vulnerability assessments that combine a species' exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity into an overall risk rating. This ove…