Snow Leopard: Stories from the Roof of the World

1. On Meeting a Snow Leopard

— 13 — 002 Whenever I walk through the Bronx Zoo, I like to halt in front of the snow leopards. Their luxuriant smoke-gray coats sprinkled with black rosettes convey an image of snowy wastes, and their pale, frosty eyes remind me of immense solitudes. For a moment the city vanishes and I am back in the Hindu Kush, the home of these magnificent cats. The December cold gripped the valley as soon as the feeble sun disappeared behind the ridge. The slopes and peaks above an altitude of 11,000 feet were snow-covered, and a bank of clouds along the distant summits suggested that soon so would be the valleys. I hurried down the trail along the edge of a boulder-strewn stream until the valley widened. There I stopped and with my binoculars scanned the steep slope ahead, moving upward past the scree and outcrops, past scattered oak trees and stands of pine, to a cliff over a thousand feet above me. A female snow leopard lay on the crest of a spur, her chin resting on a forepaw, her pelage blending into the rocks so well that she seemed almost a part of On Meeting a Snow Leopard G e o r G e B . S c h a l l e r PakiStan—A renowned biologist vividly describes his first encounter with a snow leopard and the lofty world it inhabits. G e o r G e B . S c h a l l e r — 14 — them. Several jungle crows sat in a nearby tree, and a Himalayan griffon vulture wheeled overhead, intent, I knew, on the carcass of a domestic goat the leopard was guarding. I angled up the slope toward her, moving slowly and halting at intervals, seemingly oblivious to her presence. She flattened into the rocks and watched my approach. Once she sat up, her creamy white chest a bright spot among the somber cliffs, then snaked backward off her vantage point to become a fleeting shadow that molded itself to the contours of the boulders. She retreated uphill, crossing open terrain only when a tree or outcrop shielded her from my view. From another rock she peered at me, only the top of her head visible, but a few minutes later she stalked back to her original perch and casually reclined there. I was grateful for her curiosity and boldness, for she was so adept at hiding that I would not have seen much of her without her consent. I halted 150 feet away and in the fading light unrolled my sleeping bag along a ledge in full view of her. Lying in the warmth of my bag, I could observe her feeding at the kill until darkness engulfed us. And then there was only the wind moaning among the boulders and the occasional grating of tooth on bone as the leopard continued her meal. That night it snowed, heavy moist flakes that soaked through my bedding. I huddled on the ledge, sleeping intermittently, until the rocks once again emerged from the darkness. Over four inches of snow had fallen. As I rolled up my sodden belongings, I envied the snow leopard, which sat protected and dry in the shelter of an overhang. I descended the slope through clouds and falling snow, heading toward the mud-walled hut that was my base camp in the valley. Though I was tired and chilled, the mere thought of having spent the night near a snow leopard filled me with elation. With the support of the New York Zoological Society and the National Geographic Society, Zahid Beg Mirza of Punjab University and I had come to Chitral in West Pakistan to make a month-long wildlife survey in the Chitral Gol reserve. This reserve, comprising about thirty square miles of rugged mountains with peaks rising to an altitude of 17,500 feet, has for many years belonged to the royal family of Chitral. Now His Highness Saif-ul-Maluke hopes O n M e e t i n g a S n o w L e o p a r d — 15 — to convert the area from a hunting reserve into a private sanctuary where visitors might observe the wildlife. Of particular interest to us were the Kashmir markhor goats, one of seven subspecies of Capra falconeri. The markhor spend May to October at timberline and above, but they winter in the...