Snow leopards range across the high mountain ecosystems of Central Asia where habitat protection, human-wildlife coexistence, and anti-poaching measures determine population and individual welfare.
Snow leopard welfare in the wild is threatened primarily by retaliatory killing and snaring by herders protecting livestock. Individual animals that prey on livestock face lethal persecution. Livestock protection programs that compensate herders for losses and provide predator-proof corrals reduce the financial motivation for retaliatory killing, protecting snow leopard welfare while improving human livelihoods.