Tiger and leopard expert joins the WWF-Canada team

I will talk about conflicts between humans and the two charismatic wild predators of Nepal – Tigers, “The King of the Jungle,” and Snow Leopards, “The Queen of the Mountains.”

(c) Dr. Shrestha with snow leopard cub, Nepal (c) Rinjan Shrestha/WWF
In Nepal, there are only about 150 tigers and 400 snow leopards left in wild, and their numbers are thought to be declining mainly due to poaching and retaliatory killings. Each of these beautiful, big cats has a different plight on the path to revitalization and part of my work at WWF in Nepal has been to create solutions to help these animals thrive alongside humans.
In a human-dominated world, conserving large carnivores like snow leopards and tigers is becoming increasingly difficult as they often prey on livestock, kill and injure humans, and compete with humans by preying on attractive game species.
Snow leopards live in the most uninhabitable reaches of the Himalayas and are so elusive that in my over 15 years of working in the snow leopard country, I’ve only had the pleasure of sighting them on a few occasions.

They are masters at stealthily stealing farmer’s livestock in the middle of the night. Much to the dismay of the local villagers, we’ve actually come to the conclusion that this isn’t going to stop. Because snow leopards natural prey has been pushed out of their habitat or over hunted in some regions and also because livestock are relatively easy to be stalked by snow leopards, they have now been increasingly relying on livestock to survive – livestock often makes up to 50 per cent of their diets. The annual livestock loss to snow leopards is very significant as it often accounts for a quarter of the total household income.  In order to ease the financial burden and frustration of these herders, we’ve developed a livestock insurance scheme. Working with the local villages, WWF has started an insurance fund that every farmer contributes to and WWF matches dollar for dollar. This way, when a sheep or a yak is eaten by a snow leopard, a farmer’s stock is insured so he gets reimbursed and the snow leopard can survive.

Our work with tigers has come up with a different solution to a whole other problem. Tigers live in the lowlands and have had their habitat almost cut in half by villages. As territorial creatures, this has posed a huge challenge for their breeding, eating and living habits. Tigers are often found roaming along the edges of their habitats in and around villages, which I’m sure you can imagine causes quite a disturbance and almost always ends in tragedy for both the tiger and the villagers.  Apparently, human deaths due to attack by tigers have dramatically increased from 1 person per year in 1980s to 7 people per year in 2000s. We are working to develop a system that allows us to collar the tigers with a GPS satellite so that we will be able to monitor their movements round the clock. This way, we can be alerted when they are approaching the village as well as the areas where villagers normally collect fodder and graze livestock. As soon as we get the signal, we would then notify the patrol staff to keep track of tiger movements and drive them inside the forests if needed.  Apart from this, this approach is expected to facilitate ongoing anti-poaching operations; for killing of tigers by poachers has been another crucial issue affecting their survival in this part of the world. As you can see, the work WWF does in Nepal has two key objectives: one is wildlife conservation and the other is livelihood security for the people who are living near the wildlife. These two objectives are at the core of all WWF’s work all over the world. We strive to bring cohesiveness between these seemingly contradictory objectives and are making great strides all over the planet. With the help of the world’s government, local people, other environmental organizations, our partners and our many supporters, we believe we can create a world where humans and wildlife coexist.