Bishnu Prasad devkota

There are many rewards to doing fieldwork in Nepal’s remote regions. But I would probably put my adventure, last year, of capturing on camera the elusive snow leopard as the highlight of these highs.

Last November, I set out with a team of researchers for the Phoksundo Lake region in Dolpo, an area that the snow leopard—known as Sabo, or ‘god’s pet’, by the locals—is known to inhabit. The villagers think of the feline in such reverent terms because, according to them, it only makes off with their livestock when god is angry with them.

The first stop along our trekking route was Rigmo Village, situated at 3,600 metres above sea level, and to the east of Phoksundo Lake. In our first days, we walked northwards for long stretches on trails along the shores of the Phoksundo, collecting samples for research. It was sometimes difficult to discern the trails because the snow in the area still had not melted, and Tanta Rokaya, one of the porters in our team, was worried that finding trails might prove exceedingly difficult high up in the mountain passes, which we would have to traverse on our trail of Sabo. And we did have quite a difficult time fording streams, walking on narrow ledges, climbing up to passes and finding the trail that led to Shey Monastery, where we were to conduct some field work. We then started on for the village of Vijer with Sonam Lama, a game scout of the Shey Phoksundo National Park, leading the way. We walked for two days—up hills, down slippery slopes, over gorges—and everywhere we had to deal with the chilling snow.

When we reached Vijer, we saw herds of blue sheep grazing on the nearby slopes. I got excited by the sighting, for snow leopards are known to track blue sheep. I was telling Sonam that we might run into a Sabo when he pointed towards a rocky outcrop in the distance: there, astride the rocks, was a snow leopard peering down on us. I whipped out my camera and took some shots, but the leopard was too far away, and all I got were blurry images of the animal. I regretted not bringing along a more powerful telephoto lens. I was hoping that it would approach the village—but having seen us, the leopard, a wary creature, slunk behind the rocks and disappeared out of sight.

After wrapping up field work in Vijer, we headed eastward for Choregaon, a hamlet in Saldang VDC. There are only three houses in Choregaon, which is perched on the bank of a stream and is surrounded by tall rocky hills on all sides. We put up in a house belonging to an old lady who told us that just the day before, a snow leopard killed a blue sheep, less than 500 metres away from her home. She thought the leopard might return during the night to finish the carcass. When she said that, we picked a vantage point and, as night descended, we began our lookout duty. Unfortunately, it was a moonless night, cold and dark. When the leopard did not appear for close to three hours, I thought it had scented us and was thus keeping away. I had a flashlight with me, and I was making occasional sweeps of the area with its beam. A little after the three-hour mark, during one of the sweeps, I saw two pairs of eyes, reflecting the light from the flashlight. The animals were nearby, but we could not see them properly in the dark. We decided not to disturb them as they finished the remnants of the blue sheep and we let them be. The next morning, we woke up early and went over to the area where the blue-sheep carcass was the night before. It had been dragged a few metres away, and near the site were snow leopard pugmarks.

We didn’t know if the leopards would return, but we decided to stick around in the area through the afternoon and in the hopes of getting lucky. We climbed up a nearby hill and I scanned the whole visible area with binoculars. The owner of the house where we had stayed, the old woman, pointed to something moving on a large on another hill in the distance. I spotted the two snow leopards from the night before, but they were too far away to be captured by my camera.

We had spent a month in the field and, now that our work here was done, we decided to return home. I couldn’t stop thinking about how things would have been different if only I had brought along a more powerful telephoto lens.

On our return journey, we took a different route to Phoksundo. We walked along the stream banks, along a gentle slope in between high mountains. Along the way, we saw herds of blue sheep, but I didn’t think we would find a snow leopard trailing them. But then we spotted a startled herd—the sheep seemed to be running away, down the hillside, in panic. I angled my binoculars towards the herd and behind them, beside a rock, kneeling on its forelimbs and scoping the sheep was a snow leopard. I took many rapid-fire shots of the animal with my camera. But I wanted better shots. The rock the leopard was sneaking around was across a stream; if I wanted a close up, I would have to ford it, and that might make the animal panic and make for the hills. So I asked Lanka Thapa, a porter with our team, to cross the stream—so that the leopard would be compelled to move, and I would have more opportunities to shoot it. I stood on a boulder, ready, with my finger on the button. When Lanka started wading through the stream, the leopard caught sight of him and started loping away—it stayed within camera range for quite some time. I took shot after shot of the animal. We had finally captured Sabo.