Snow Leopard (Panthera uncia)

[TheHyenid76]

Snow leopards and three sympatric carnivores

Camera trapping reveals habitat overlap  between snow leopards and common leopards in Gaurishankar Conservation Area, Nepal LINK

Abstract

We  provide  camera  trap  records  of  the  presence  of two large predators: the snow leopard Panthera uncia   and   common   leopard   Panthera   pardus   from   the   same   habitats   in   Lapchi   Valley   of   Gaurishankar  Conservation  Area.  Camera  traps  were  laid  for  2,304  (mean  88.62  ±  SD  103.34)  trap nights in 26 locations (elevation range: 2,140 to  4,350  m,  area:  141.63  km2).  A  total  of  55,  219  pictures  were  recorded  from  November  2022  to  May 2023. Out of 26 camera stations, two camera stations  captured  the  images  of  both  species  at  an  altitude  of  4,000  m  and  4,260  m  in  Lapchi  Valley.  The  Relative  Abundance  Indices  of  snow  leopards  and  common  leopards  were  7.51  ±  SD  6.35 and 9.84 ± SD 6.35 per 100 trap days/nights, and  independent  detection  rates  were  0.41  and 0.52  respectively.  This  is  the  first  evidence  of  habitat overlap between two large vulnerable pre-dators  in  Gaurishankar  Conservation  Area.  The  nature of the coexistence or competition between these predators needs further investigation.

[Photo 1A & B. Snow leopard and common leopard in the same habitat.Snow leopard and Common leopard camera trap photos in Lapchi Valley of  Gaurishankar Conservation Area, Nepal.]

*This image is copyright of its original author

From 'What is a snow leopard? Behavior and ecology'. Chapter 2 of 'Snow Leopards (Biodiversity of the World: Conservation from Genes to Landscapes) 2nd Edition' About the Book by Snow Leopard Network

*This image is copyright of its original author

Authors of this chapter : Joseph L. Fox, Raghu Chundawat, Shannon Kachel, Aimee Tallian & Orjan Johansson

Interactions with other large carnivores

Across their range, snow leopards are sympatric with multiple large carnivore species—frequently wolves and Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), but also common leopards (Panthera pardus), dholes (Cuon alpinus), and bears (Ursus spp.). Low prey diversity in most snow leopard habitats suggests that competition for prey is likely to occur when available prey limits snow leopards or their potential competitors. Wolves in particular show consistently high dietary overlap with snow leopards (Bocci et al., 2017; Jumabay-Uulu et al., 2014; Kachel et al., 2022; Pal et al., 2022 and see Chapter 13). In light of this, indirect observations of wolves stealing kills (kleptoparasitism) and even anecdotal accounts of wolves killing snow leopards (interspecific killing), are hardly surprising; instead they are consistent with the better-developed literature describing interactions between wolves and pumas (Elbroch and Kusler, 2018). Yet, neither Pal et al. (2022) nor Salvatori et al. (2022) found any evidence of negative spatial effects of wolves on snow leopards in India and Mongolia, respectively. Instead, despite high dietary overlap, the differences in habitat use between the two species appear to be due to their different hunting strategies (Kachel et al., 2022, 2023) rather than active avoidance. Negative cooccurrence coefficients estimated by Pal et al. (2022) hint that snow leopards seasonally avoid the more aggressive common leopard (Lovari et al., 2013); the analogous relationship between pumas and jaguars (Panthera onca; Elbroch and Kusler, 2018) suggests that snow leopards are subordinate to common leopards where their ranges overlap. Bears, though they do not specialize on ungulate prey, do kleptoparasitize and kill big cats (e.g. Elbroch and Kusler, 2018); they too could exert important competitive effects in some landscapes. On the other hand, snow leopards are likely dominant toward the smaller-bodied lynx—the difference in the size of their primary prey may reduce the potential for competition between the two. Documented intraguild predation and interspecific killing near kill sites indicate that snow leopards have the potential to suppress mesopredators populations even while subsidizing them with carrion (Samelius et al., 2022).

Google Drive Link to the Book - Snow Leopards 2nd ED

Interactions between snow leopards and dogs

Feral dogs are able to chase snow leopards away from their kills

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