India has completed its first-ever nationwide scientific census of snow leopards, revealing an estimated 718 individuals thriving in the country’s high-altitude Himalayan regions. The survey, a landmark conservation milestone, provides the first reliable baseline for protecting one of the world’s most elusive and endangered big cats.
The Snow Leopard Population Assessment in India (SPAI) was conducted by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), in collaboration with several state forest departments, the Nature Conservation Foundation, and WWF-India. The extensive fieldwork was carried out between 2019 and 2023, covering over 70% of the species’ potential habitat — about 120,000 square kilometres of the trans-Himalayan region.