Livestock husbandry and snow leopard conservation

Retaliatory killing in response to livestock depredation is one of the key threats to snow leopards across their range. Snow leopards sometimes break into livestock corrals, as a result of poor maintenance and design, sometimes killing many domestic goats and sheep and inflicting substantial economic damage on the lives of the livestock owners. People may retaliate against these attacks by killing the cat and sometimes selling their body parts. Corral improvement has emerged as a very important conflict mitigation tool across many of the countries where livestock predation and this need exist. Here we summarize experiences from several snow leopard range countries, including Afghanistan, India, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, and Tajikistan, highlighting our experiences from corral improvements and the performance of these efforts in reducing human-snow leopard conflict.