“At the top of the mountain we are all snow leopards,” Hunter S. Thompson once wrote. Four thousand metres up the Tien Shan mountains, perched atop a metre-wide ridge, I’m not so sure. But any fear I feel is outweighed by curiosity, and the same prickling sensation I’ve experienced for days: the sense that out there, hidden in a cave, one of the world’s most elusive beasts might be watching me.
As befits the snow leopard’s nickname, the “grey ghost” – the scientific term, Uncia uncia, is equally alliteration-happy – setting eyes on one is a Sisyphean task. While it’s no longer listed as an endangered species, as few as 4,000 may remain in the wild. Since hosting the 2013 Global Snow Leopard Forum, reuniting the 12 Central Asian countries the animal inhabits, Kyrgyzstan – a landlocked neighbour of China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – has been a pioneer in their conservation.
