- “Deep-rooted cultural beliefs and legal protections continue to play a crucial role in safeguarding snow leopards, supported by awareness campaigns that reinforce traditional practices and conservation,” a new commentary explains.
- In many areas across their range where livestock are killed by the rare predators, farmers’ religious customs often dictate that they must not harmed in retaliation.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
In November 2023, at 4 a.m., four snow leopards made their way into Mingmar Gurung’s livestock corral in Dhakmar village, Mustang district, Nepal.
Hearing the goats’ commotion so early in the morning, Mingmar ran toward the corral. The scene was heartbreaking: out of the 190 goats, snow leopards had killed 77. In the morning, villagers found the group of snow leopards on nearby ridges and took pictures and videos. Two of the animals returned the next morning at 3 a.m. to feed on the goats. One of them was trapped in the corral for half an hour while another escaped.
Mingmar, who could have sought revenge, chose not to, since Buddhism teaches compassion and nonviolence. “This is the culture of the people of the Himalayas and a reflection of their attitude towards Mother Nature,” says Surya Bahadur Thakali, a Lama priest from Mustang.
Mustang is home to 14,452 people of predominantly Buddhist ethnic groups, with 20.9% Thakali, 20.1% Gurung, and the remaining population from other ethnicities. Around 60.2% of the people follow Buddhist teachings in this district north of Nepal’s central Himalaya region, which is also one of the crucial habitats of the globally vulnerable snow leopard (Panther uncia). Although the animal’s actual population is uncertain for lack of detailed studies, Mustang is considered crucial because it also serves as a transboundary corridor between Nepal and its northern neighbor, China.
The Buddha’s teachings encourage compassion, mindfulness, interconnectedness, and generosity toward nature and all living beings, recognizing their interdependence and our responsibility to protect them. The renowned field biologist George Schaller agrees that, in theory, Buddhist people respect the lives of all living beings. For example, Mingmar Gurung had performed a prayer to protect the goats from the danger and had even hung a lama’s religious text, amulet and prayer flag in the corral. However, these did not help him. “In my case, maybe the deities were angry with me. I do not exactly know what my mistake was. Some villagers also believed the deities were angry,” he says.
Apart from beliefs about angry deities, there are other reasons that could explain these incidents. In his case, even though the corral was 12 feet (3.6 meters) tall and made from stone and an iron fence, the wild predator was able to enter because the roof was not covered. Most mass killings often have some loopholes like this. For example, on Feb. 20, 2025, an adult snow leopard also entered through a hole in the corral of Namgel Gurung in Samar village, Mustang, killing four goats. The snow leopard was later rescued and released by Annapurna Conservation Area Project authorities.
In the book Vanishing Tracks by Darla Hillard, the pioneering snow leopard scientist Rodney Jackson mentions in the preface, “Penned, panicked livestock cannot escape, and the cat’s natural ‘kill instinct’ is repeatedly triggered until every animal is dead.”
Koutsubh Sharma agrees with Jackson about the reasons that snow leopards engage in mass killings of livestock in corrals: “When encountered with panicked animals in a confined space, predators tend to undergo an adrenaline rush that leads them into a killing frenzy, when animals have limited or no [means of] escape.”
While snow leopards may kill livestock for survival, these actions also lead to myths and perceptions that influence how people view them.
“Over much of the Himalaya, the local people painted or chiseled outlines of snow leopard on canyon walls, an indication that the cat had symbolic value,” Schaller says. The local Thini people call the snow leopard hechen (he meaning boulder, and chen meaning sitting) as snow leopards are often found near boulders, and are linked to their ancestral deities. The leopards are said to attack domestic animals when these deities get angry.
It’s not just Mingmar Gurung: others in Mustang also revere the animals and are accustomed to having them around. For example, in May 2024, an adult male snow leopard was seen in Kagbeni village, where it remained for two days. The local community observed the animal but did no harm. “Some still believe that the arrival of the snow leopard in the village might mean a bad omen,” says Dhurba Baral, a teacher at Janashanti Secondary School in Kagbeni, who also teaches snow leopard conservation to grades six to eight. “However, so far, no such case has been reported.” Baral adds.
The ward chairman of Baragung Muktichhetra rural municipality, Karma Gyacho Gurung, in Kagbeni, also says the presence of snow leopards in the village is believed to be a result of neglecting household or village deities.
During his research on snow leopards and their diet in Sagarmatha (Everest) National Park from 2002 to 2009, the renowned field biologist Sandro Lovari from the University of Siena, Italy, worked with Sherpa communities. In his observation, local people regard the snow leopard as the reincarnation of a lama, a “messenger of the gods.”
In traditions outside of Nepal also, the snow leopard is seen as an animal that purifies the human environment, and therefore it was forbidden to hunt, kill or violate it in any way. Its likeness is represented on coins, currency and postage stamps. Sculptures of the great cat can be found throughout the 12 countries of its range. There is even a bronze sculpture of the snow leopard in Gorky Park in Moscow. Ancient petroglyphs in Kyrgyzstan portray what are thought to be snow leopards hunting with humans.
These beliefs live on even today. For example, Shavun Mara Kidd describes an extraordinary incident in her book, Searching for the Snow Leopard: Guardians of the High Mountains: Indigenous cultural practitioner Norbu Lama encountered a snow leopard after officiating at a spring gathering in Buryatia, Russia, to honor the animal. While driving near Lake Baikal, Norbu and his companions saw what appeared to be a person on the side of the road, but it was actually a snow leopard sitting on a rock. They stopped and spent almost an hour admiring its beauty and graceful movements. Norbu later described this experience as “secret communications” and his teacher explained that the snow leopard was the sacred spirit of the mountain.
Scholar Hannah Taub states that, in Mongolia, within the context of shamanism and Tibetan Buddhism, the snow leopard is seen as a symbol of strength, mystery and protection. Animals like the snow leopard are viewed as guardians of the land, embodying power and resilience. In many traditional Mongolian beliefs, the snow leopard is considered a spirit animal or messenger of the gods. Buddhists consider all beings to be interconnected, and animal killing is generally discouraged in communities where Tibetan Buddhism is practiced.
Local legends about snow leopards vary across cultures. In some Siberian traditions, they are seen as ancient beings with supernatural powers, such as shape shifting or bringing good fortune.
In Ladakhi culture, the snow leopard is seen as a powerful, mystical creature symbolizing strength, grace, and independence. Influenced by Tibetan Buddhism, it is regarded as a guardian of the mountains and a protector of the fragile ecosystem. As a top predator, it helps maintain ecological balance by controlling herbivore populations. In folklore, the snow leopard is often viewed as a divine messenger or a bringer of good fortune.
Despite this, exceptions persist. A large population of Buddhists also inhabit the Himalayas, where livestock predation leads to retaliatory killings of snow leopards, threatening the delicate balance between reverence and survival. “I recall, some of my herder friends once asked if they could kill the snow leopard,” a local conservation committee member in the Himalaya recalls.
To prevent this, Schaller says there are many methods to guard their livestock: “Have guard dogs with your flocks day and night, have a guard accompany and herd your flock on the range, and build predator-proof, fenced areas for the animals at night,” he advises.
C.E. Hacker and her team found that herders with more years of formal education and fewer livestock losses were more likely to have positive attitudes, whereas those with lower importance of snow leopards to their religion, fewer livestock losses, and fewer years of education were more likely to have negative attitudes.
While livestock husbandry has been a key livelihood for Himalayan farmers, migration and changing attitudes among the youth are shifting traditional practices. Some believe these changes, driven by tourism and new values, could harm snow leopard conservation.
However, deep-rooted cultural beliefs and legal protections continue to play a crucial role in safeguarding snow leopards, supported by awareness campaigns that reinforce traditional practices and conservation.
Anil Adhikari leads the community-based Snow Leopard Conservation Project in Nepal’s Himalayas.
Related audio from Mongabay’s podcast: A framework that considers the needs of the more-than-human world based on “ecological empathy” is the focus of researcher Lauren Lambert, listen here:
See related coverage and commentaries:
The paradox of balancing conservation efforts for Himalayan wolves and snow leopards (commentary)
Smuggling networks exploit migrant debt to fuel tiger poaching in Malaysia, study shows
Citation:
Hacker, C. E., Dai, Y., Cheng, Y., Zhang, Y., Zhang, Y., Miller, L. J., & Janecka, J. E. (2020). Determinants of herder attitudes towards the vulnerable snow leopard Panthera uncia in Yushu prefecture, China. Oryx, 55(5), 783-790. doi:10.1017/s0030605319001315
Credits
This story first appeared on Mongabay
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and Mongabay, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.