South Asia: India. In Snow leopards. Biodiversity of the world: conservation from genes to landscapes. Series editor: Philip J. Nyhus, Volume editors: Thomas McCarthy, David Mallon. 

India has a rich natural history record fromthe Himalaya spanning over a century. In this paper we provide an overview of existingknowledge on snow leopard, especially from the more recent studies. A knowledgegap analysis revealed barely 3% of its range is relatively well studied,although snow leopards occur pervasively across ca. 100,000 km² in the Indian Himalaya. Only 37% of itsrange appears to be ‘good’ habitat. Based on recent density estimates and theirextrapolation over the range, India is likely to support about 500 snowleopards. Threats vary regionally, but livestock grazing by migratory herders andrecent developmental pressures appear to be the most serious conservationissues threatening snow leopard and other wildlife in the snow leopard range.Given the pervasive snow leopard occurrence and human pressures, the general consensusand national strategy is to formulate and implement knowledge based,participatory programmes over large landscapes.