Snow leopard conservation depends on addressing livestock conflict and restoring prey populations in their high-altitude range across Central Asia.
Snow leopard welfare intersects with human community welfare in high-altitude pastoral systems where livestock represent livelihoods. When snow leopards kill livestock, the economic impact on herding families can be devastating, creating strong incentives for retaliatory killing. Programs that compensate herders for losses remove the conflict between human livelihood and snow leopard survival. Restoring wild prey populations by protecting blue sheep and ibex from hunting reduces the pressure on leopards to prey on livestock in the first place.