Bhupender Yadav, Union minister of Environment, Forest and Climate change, on Tuesday released a status report on snow leopards in India during the National Board for Wildlife meeting which was held in New Delhi. The first scientific survey of the Snow leopard in India which is The Snow leopard population assessment in India (SPAI) has reported that India is home to 718 snow Leopards.The entire SPAI exercise involved 13,450 km of trails surveyed for snow leopard signs and 1,971 locations where camera traps were set up fpr180,000 trap nights. with an estimated presence in 100,841 km2 the occupancy of Snow leopard was recorded in 93,392 km2. A total of 241 unique snow Leopards were photographed.
Based on The Snow Leopard Population Assessment’s data analysis, Ladakh (477) has the highest population followed by Uttarakhand (124), Himachal Pradesh (51), Arunachal Pradesh (36), Sikkim (21), and Jammu and Kashmir (9).