Snow Leopard: Stories from the Roof of the World

15. Pangje

— 121 — 016 October 24, 2004. Dawn gradually approached as we gathered field gear to leave for our next camp in Phorche, a small Nepali village en route to the Everest base camp. A series of piercing whistles interrupted our work. Sensing something out of the ordinary, I hurried toward the sound and spotted five Himalayan tahr whistling alarms toward the nearby cliff. Crouched low, my field assistant, Lalu, and I scanned the cliff and surrounding slopes with binoculars. Nothing moved except the occasional startled flights of Impeyan pheasants. Far away, I could hear the faint echo of a herdsman yelling at his yaks. After half an hour Lalu whispered in my ear, “Something is moving on the rock.” I slanted my spotting scope toward a cluster of boulders on the hedgy horizon. Something moved. I could hardly believe my eyes. A snow leopard came into focus, lying on a boulder, calmly grooming its paw. Several pheasants perched near the cat became abruptly noisy, their piercing calls penetrating the silence. The cat remained authoritatively unperturbed by the loud pheasants and jittery tahr. Suddenly, thin clouds moved swiftly Pangje S o m B . A l e NepAl—In a mystical land of sacred valleys, a young biologist sets out to save the snow leopard and discovers in the process an ageless ethic that exists between the local Buddhist people and all living things, including the snow leopard. S o m B . A l e — 122 — across the entire mountain, briefly engulfing the drama before our eyes. The leopard rose abruptly, yawned, and then ambled toward us. Hands unsteady with excitement, I managed several pictures. In and out of a veil of wispy clouds, the ghostly apparition moved to the base of an overhanging rock, sniffed it, rubbed its left chin, then turned its rear toward the rock and sprayed—an invitation to mate or a cautious warning to competitors. After nearly twenty minutes it moved slowly out of view, leaving me breathless, heart pounding . . . quiet. After ten years I had finally witnessed the spirit animal of Nepal’s great mountains. My first sighting of a snow leopard happened near Mount Everest, but my first introduction to snow leopards in the wild came a decade earlier in the Annapurna region of north-central Nepal. Like any fresh, enthusiastic university graduate who dreams of a wildlife career, I eagerly accepted a post offered by the Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP), established to protect the natural and cultural resources surrounding the Annapurna Himal, which includes the tenth-highest summit in the world. As Nepal’s most popular trekking destination, the region is experiencing increased socioecological impacts from the trekking industry. Tourism in Nepal originated in the Annapurna area, popularized when Maurice Herzog, a French mountaineer, reached the summit of Annapurna I in 1950—the first-ever ascent of a 26,000-foot peak. News of Herzog’s feat exposed a mountain paradise to the world. The number of trekkers swelled, bringing opportunities and changes to thousands of farmers and shepherds living in the shadow of Annapurna. This remote land of geological extremes thwarts large-scale development, but even small disturbances can cause lasting environmental damage. My job was to convince villagers that conservation measures could improve their lives over the long term, offering ways to manage swelling tourism while simultaneously protecting natural resources—including the endangered snow leopard. In the early 1990s a Japanese filmmaking crew trekked to Manang, a small village of 500 flattop roofed houses situated at the base of the Annapurna massif, about a five- to six-day walk P a n g j e — 123 — up the Marsyandi drainage. Near the village, the crew baited live goats to attract snow leopards for filming. In an ironic twist, the filmmakers who studied and made the snow leopard famous inadvertently increased its peril: residents of Manang believed the use of local livestock to attract snow leopards made them less afraid of humans and more likely to poach other livestock in broad daylight. Villagers complained to ACAP, which hired a new staff person— me—to deal with this problem. Iwasthrilledbutalsoanxiousaboutmynewresponsibility.Local inhabitants of Manang were rumored to be unfriendly to visitors. My four years among them proved the rumor to be unfounded. Time passed wonderfully as some of the wisest men I have ever met filled me with ageless stories about this valley of awesome mysteries—Bön deities, Buddhist lore, sky...