Snow leopards are elusive mountain predators facing habitat loss, retaliatory killing, and poaching. Conservation programs that protect both predators and livestock are key to their survival.
Snow leopards face welfare harms primarily from snaring, retaliatory killing, and the stress of increasingly fragmented habitats. Animals caught in snares set for musk deer or other prey suffer prolonged injury and slow death. Retaliatory poisoning following livestock attacks causes a painful death for individual animals. Conservation programs that compensate herders for livestock losses and provide predator-proof corrals have dramatically reduced retaliatory killing in project areas. GPS collar research has improved understanding of movement needs, though capture for research causes acute stress. Climate change threatens the snow leopard's high-altitude habitat as temperatures rise and vegetation zones shift upward.