Researchers Use 3,000 Cameras To Capture These Elusive Animals — And It Worked Out
Between 2022 and 2025, some researchers captured photographs of a slippery predator prowling in the mountains of India, according to a report by Research Matters. This is a snow leopard. It waits until the night falls, crouching behind the rugged, rocky cliffs of the towering Himalayas. The moment skies turn dark and the village snuffs out its yellow oil lanterns to go to sleep, it emerges from hiding. The sounds of its chuffing and hissing fill the night, beginning from hushed, eerie notes to a fierce cacophony. The cacophony gains momentum as its eye catches sight of a prey. Then comes the time for a ferocious murder episode, as depicted in a video by Nat Geo Animals.
Leaping and jumping for miles and miles, the predator zips through the midnight mist to chase the prey, its long tail trailing behind like a vicious, bloodthirsty cobra. Some days, it’s a blue sheep that becomes unlucky, while other days, it’s an Ibex, a marmot, or a goat. By the time the dawn breaks and the Sun is back in the sky, the predator has already slayed its prey, the evidence of which can be seen in the blood stains splattered on the rocks and thickets nearby, while the predator feasts upon the meaty carcass.
To catch sight of these majestic predators in the wild is a rare experience, a breathtaking one too. Hailed as one of the “most elusive big cats on the planet,” snow leopards carry a special ability to survive in the low-oxygen environments of high-altitude regions like the Himalayas. They are generally not aggressive towards the animals. Lately, however, pestered by extreme human encroachment, their numbers are nearing the edge of the extinction scale.
Some greedy humans started killing these animals to rip out their pelts, body parts, and handsome rosette-patterned flesh to sell for money. According to the Snow Leopard Population Assessment, only an estimated 718 snow leopards were remaining in India in January 2024. Activities like hydroelectric projects and mining also pose a great threat to these ambush predators. Propelled by the desire to protect them, some researchers initiated a conservation project to track down the elusive creatures prowling in Jammu & Kashmir’s mountains. They punctuated the high-altitude desert with more than 3,000 trail cameras that ended up capturing images of these creatures, also known as the “ghosts of the mountains.”
The project involved a three-year study plan organized as a collaborative effort between multiple organizations, including the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) and the Wildlife Protection Department of Jammu & Kashmir, with support from Royal Enfield Social Mission. Vigyat Singh, director of one of the groups involved in the project, reflected that snow leopards are “more than just an indicator species” and doing something to conserve their habitats will also contribute to the “overall health and resilience of high-altitude ecosystems.”
“These findings reaffirm the importance of Jammu and Kashmir as a key snow leopard stronghold. It is time to treat the Kishtwar Himalayas not as isolated valleys, but as part of an interconnected conservation landscape,” added Dr. Shahid Hameed, Wildlife Research and Project Coordinator at NCF. In addition to the snow leopards, the study documented 16 other mammal species, including the rare Himalayan brown bear, Himalayan wolf, common leopard, Kashmir musk deer, stone marten, pika, Asiatic ibex, and red fox.
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