Saving the Snow Leopard

After 31 years of practicing veterinary medicine, with the last 27 years focused exclusively on cats, I understand all too well the importance of prioritizing both physical and mental health in such a demanding profession. As I’ve grown older, I’ve also begun exploring more spiritual ways to create balance amid the physical, emotional, and mental challenges of my work. Still, I am far from a sedentary soul. I needed an adventure.

As fate would have it, the perfect opportunity appeared at exactly the right time, and I said yes.

I joined a small group called the Global Protagonists on their next mission to Ladakh, India. The Global Protagonists are a growing community of conservationists dedicated to connecting people with meaningful work that protects wildlife and ecosystems. Their upcoming mission combined snow leopard conservation with hands-on coexistence work in remote Himalayan villages — home to an estimated 480 snow leopards out of the approximately 4000 remaining in the wild.

The survival of these magnificent cats depends upon peaceful coexistence with the communities who share their mountains.

This sounded like exactly the adventure I had been searching for.

Our mission was based out of Ulley, a Himalayan village in Ladakh at an elevation of 13,500 ft.The mission offered not only an incredible purpose, but also the rare chance to witness the “Ghost of the Mountains”, a cat that very few people will ever see in the wild.

During my 12-day mission with the Global Protagonists, a team made up primarily of wildlife veterinarians and conservationists, we worked alongside Mission Rabies India, One Health, and the Snow Leopard Conservancy India. These organizations came together united by a common goal: promoting the health of humans, animals, and the environment, because protecting our planet requires all of us to work together.

We learned about snow leopards by visually tracking them with trained spotters and by placing and monitoring trail cameras. Incredibly, luck was on my side. I was fortunate enough to experience five separate snow leopard sightings, including a female with her two one year-old cubs. Cubs stay with their mother for up to two years.

We also partnered with local villagers to help construct predator-proof livestock enclosures. By preventing snow leopards from killing livestock, we helped reduce human-wildlife conflict and encouraged communities to respect, understand, and coexist with these extraordinary animals.

In addition, we participated in a brand-new pilot program with One Health and Mission Rabies India to vaccinate free-roaming dogs (and a few domestic cats) in the mountain villages against rabies. This effort protected not only the local people, but also the snow leopard population from a 100% fatal disease.

In places like Ladakh, protecting one part of the system means protecting the whole.

Snow leopards are apex predators that help keep herbivore populations, such as Ibex, in balance. Without them, overgrazing can damage these fragile mountain ecosystems, reducing water retention and depleting resources for local communities. Climate change is already accelerating water scarcity in the region. What happens to the environment directly impacts human life.

Healthy ecosystems are not sustained by protecting a single species alone. They survive by protecting the connections between all living things.

For me, this mission was eye-opening on every level. It was an adventure through a breathtaking landscape unlike anything I had ever seen, an opportunity to form new friendships, experience a culture vastly different from my own, and ultimately, a chance to actively participate in conservation efforts protecting one of the world’s most vulnerable feline species.

I wasn’t just a tourist. I became a conservationist.