Snow leopards inhabit the high mountains of Central Asia. Climate change is rapidly altering their habitat, adding to existing threats from poaching and prey depletion.
Wild snow leopard welfare is shaped by the compounding pressures of prey availability, human conflict, and climate change. Individual snow leopards killed in retaliation for livestock predation die in traps or through poisoning — both involving significant suffering. As warming shifts prey species ranges upward, snow leopards are forced to hunt in smaller, more competitive territories, increasing energy expenditure and stress. The Snow Leopard Trust's community-based livestock compensation programmes directly reduce retaliatory killing, offering one of the most direct welfare interventions available for this species. Protecting individual snow leopards from human persecution is both a welfare priority and a conservation necessity given the small global population.