Significant Group Of Species In The Ecosystem: Snow Leopard

Snow Leopard
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Introduction
Terrestrial carnivores are a significant group of species in the ecosystem. Most of the carnivores have become endangered over time due to various reasons. The presence of such animals like the snow leopard has important effects on the environment and ecosystem at large. Other than their impact on the ecosystem, carnivores play a significant role in social and economic benefits; they drive tourism as people go out for wildlife drives. However, many of these species have become endangered and are on the verge of extinction. Different factors and occurrences have led to the persecution of the carnivores. The factors include, but are not limited to prey depletion, climate change, and human activity. Herein, the paper will discuss the snow leopard, a rare beautiful gray leopard, which lives in the Central Asia Mountains.
Leopards have features and characteristics that help them adapt to their environment. They have thick hair that works as insulations, and their feet are wide and covered with fur which eases their movement in the snow. Their powerful limbs help them in leaping and jumping as far as 50 feet; they have long tails that they use to cover sensitive body areas from the harsh mountain climate as well as use them for balancing.
The number of snow leopards has declined over time, hence research into the different reasons and factors leading to their endangerment is necessary. The information gathered on their decline is useful to conservationists, who aim at maintaining and rescuing the few remaining leopards. With human activity being one of the major reasons they have reduced, the information gathered is also vital in creating awareness to communities living in the mountains for them to understand the need for the cats. The snow leopard has been considered as an endangered species and is listed in The Red Book of Threatened Species of the International Union of Conservation of Nature. The research aims to delve deeper into why snow leopards are becoming extinct due to climate change, human activities and black trade.
Climate Change
Snow leopards live across the mountain ranges of Central Asia, where they prefer complex structural habitat with enough cover for hunting. Climate change has been one of the main factors affecting the persistence and existence of species that require space to thrive. The change in climate has led to habitat fragmentation, loss, and shifts that largely affect snow leopards. The impacts include uphill alteration of the tree line, declining glaciers, loss of low surface water topographies such as ponds and streams and increasing temperatures among others. The impacts affect the snow leopards and their prey in various ways. They reduce the habitat area which is due to the shift in the tree line upward and also the decline in the alpine grassland productivity. The shifts also cause fragmentation in the habitat, which reduces its suitability for the cats and its prey. The subsurface layer of the soil also faces degradation due to climate change. The degradation affects the prey preferences for the snow leopard because the pasture growth becomes affected. With a decline in the available prey for the cats due to pasture, it becomes hard for the species to live in a habitat that is not sustainable. The difficulties lead to their death and a decline in numbers that eventually causes extinction.
The state of the environment that the snow leopards inhabit should be considered largely because of the prey, and the niche overlap between the cats and the prey needs protection. Snow leopards in a study done have been seen to have their population in forested areas lower than usual. The numbers are associated with the presence of their prey, and that area is considered the niche overlap between them and their prey. Climate changes like receding snow line, landslides and rising temperatures if not controlled are bound to affect the vegetation used which ends up impacting heavily on the habitat. The prey, for example, the wild ungulates ends up not having pasture and enough to feed on leading to their migration or death. Their level in the ecosystem affects the predators who are the snow leopards in this case leading to their endangerment and eventually extinction.
The snow leopard habitat ranges between the beginning of the snow line and the end of the tree lines on the mountains. Rising temperatures associated with climate change result in receding snow lines which forces the cats to move further up the slopes. Higher up the mountains, vegetation decreases, which also affect the availability of prey. The limited supply of the preferred prey endangers the leopards because they cannot find enough food. The receding snowline also decreases the habitats for the cats due to the shifts and fragmentations. Shrinking of alpine meadows and change in tree lines affects the distribution of the snow leopard’s habitat. According to studies done in the Himalaya, about 30% of the habitat was perceived to be lost due to shifts in the tree line and consequent alpine zone shrinking. Although most of their habitats and species are resilient to changes in climate, the consequences of the changes are bound to affect the snow leopard. Fragmentation and shrinkage in habitat consequently breed livestock grazing and collection of medicinal plants which would increase the cases of retaliatory killing.
Also, the rising temperatures access the sublayer of soil that is permanently frozen. The vegetation acts as an insulator to the soil to seal out the high temperatures and sunlight for the soil to remain frozen. When the soil melts, it has a huge impact on the habitat and also on the people who rely on the mountains for pasture and water. It causes soil erosion, landslide, lakes disappear, and it changes the composition of plant species. Climate change contributes to additional declines in the prey due to the establishment of grasslands by less nourishing ones, illnesses driven by the weather and competition from new and different species. The fragmentation and shift in the terrain and the presence of their prey preference were found to be the most significant factors in determining the distribution of the snow leopards. Therefore, climate change does pose a risk to the survival of snow leopard because of both the direct and indirect impacts it has on them.
Human Activities
It is well recognized that human beings and their activities extensively distress ecological systems. Humans hunting large carnivores is a common occurrence which perceives them as predators. A study done showed that snow leopards have little to no activity around areas of human presence. The cats avoid areas that have high human activity due to harassment or getting hunted. There is increasing pressure from human activities like farming that encroaches into native species' range affecting their livelihood and habitat. Persecution and hunting of snow leopards have been largely witnessed which has been due to depredation of livestock. Human activities consequently lead to loss and fragmentation of the habitat as well as reduce the availability of the snow leopard’s prey preference. Due to inadequate prey supply, the cats result in livestock depredation that leads to conflicts between them and humans posing a risk to the snow leopards. Humans retaliate once their livestock is preyed and they end up killing the few remaining leopards, the retaliatory killings endanger the species, which in some way leads to their extinction if it is not stopped in good time. However, a study done showed that there is a mismatch between reality and human perceptions of livestock depredation by the snow leopards whose survival has been threatened by the persecution by pastoralists. The lack of awareness and having little to no information on the snow leopards, the local mountain communities continue to be a significant and increasing threat to the carnivores and other animals that overlap in the cats’ habitat.
Research has shown that snow leopards are frequently persecuted in conservation in Nepal. Hungry snow leopards are known to jump into a cattle barn where they remain trapped; this causes them to panic resulting in them killing a lot of livestock. Due to this, human beings have resulted in killing the trapped cats due to the l...