Rescue, rehabilitation, translocation, reintroduction, and captive rearing: Lessons from the other big cats

As human populations increase and overlap with snow leopards, conflicts will undoubtedly occur. In some cases, there will likely be the need to translocate individuals to reduce conflict, to supplement or restore lost or endangered populations, and possibly to restore genetic diversity. Captive rearing may even be needed in some situations. Therefore, the capacity to capture, handle, manage, rehabilitate, and release snow leopards will be important to future management initiatives. Preparing people—from bureaucrats down to local communities—for the consequences of such management actions will be an important component of snow leopard conservation as well. In this chapter, we present a series of case studies that represent efforts to restore wild populations or return captive felids back to the wild. Based on these case studies, we outline procedures and lessons learned that may be applicable in addressing snow leopard management issues in the future.