![]() ![]() ![]() The more scientists can learn about snow leopards, the better they can protect these rarely seen cats from humans who harm them. Hunters target ibex, wild sheep, and other animals for food and trophies-removing important snow leopard prey. Herders often kill any snow leopard that attacks their livestock. Poachers can sell a snow leopard’s hide and bones for thousands of dollars. New in version 8: BlueHarvest now includes 'Storage Cleaner' which allows you to free up space used by app caches and log files. THE REAL THREATĮven though snow leopards live in some of the most rugged mountain terrain on Earth, people pose the biggest threat to their survival. BlueHarvest keeps your disks free of metadata while you work without you needing to lift a finger. Motion-activated digital cameras capture images of snow leopards, exposing many new details about how many there are, how they live, and what threatens their survival. They gently trap the wild cats to examine them and put on satellite radio collars to track where the cats roam. To do that, researchers use high-tech tools to spy on the shy animals. Snow leopard experts need to gather more information about the secretive cats’ lives to help protect them. Researchers think only 3,500 to 7,000 snow leopards exist in the wild, but no one knows for sure. (Find out 5 reasons why you'll leap for snow leopards.) SEARCHING FOR SNOW LEOPARDSįew humans have seen snow leopards in real life, but hunting scenes like the one above have been captured on video by researchers who spend countless hours searching the mountains of Central Asia for snow leopards. At night, the cats curl their tails around their bodies like a cozy scarf to keep warm-and to stay hidden while sleeping. And their long, heavy tail helps them keep their balance while they’re chasing prey. Their large paws work like snowshoes, letting the cat walk on snow without sinking. In addition to camouflaging them, a snow leopard’s soft, dense fur keeps it warm in the bitter cold. But these cats have some amazing body parts that make living in the area no big deal. The mountains the snow leopards call home are rugged and extremely cold in the winter. Their range spans about two million square miles, which is about half the size of Greenland. These endangered cats are nearly impossible to see-they’ve even earned the nickname “ghost of the mountains.” Their spotted coats act as cloaks of invisibility by blending into the rocky mountains of the 12 Central Asian countries where the cats live: Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. ![]()
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