As we reach for the stars we neglect the flowers at our feet … For epochs to come the peaks will still pierce the lonely vistas, but when the last snow leopard has stalked among the crags … a spark of life will have gone, turning the mountains into stones of silence.
—George B. Schaller, Mountain Monarchs
A SNOW SQUALL IS HEADING our way. The bank of dark clouds presses closer. But for now the morning is impassively still—blue skies with the sharp chill of December dawn, which bites through my gloves at the tips of my fingers and slips under my scarf to the nape of my neck. My breath drifts before me in foggy, warm eddies that rest and then freeze on my eyebrows and lashes.
The first blaze of sunrise hits the boulders above in a burst of burnt orange poised in a beam on the uppermost ledge that then swells, washing down the weatherworn faces of granite. With thick drifts of snow piled behind and beside me, I can almost believe that the path where I stand climbs eastward into the Nepalese mountains retracing Peter Matthiessen’s steps in search of the snow leopard he never found. Just as he did over four decades earlier, I catch traces of paw prints left in the snowbank, wandering up to the lowest rocks. Yet in spite of my training as a veterinary behaviorist and all my years working with leopards in zoos, my search at this moment is no more rewarding. I know all too well they most likely are perched right under my nose on the uppermost ledge, somewhere between all the fir trees and boulders, surveying the boundaries of their domain. As in the wild, Himalayan ghost cats.
In this modern age with man’s untamed expansion and unbridled craving for more and more land, snow leopards remain one of earth’s most mysterious, elusive creatures. For though they roam freely in perhaps thirteen countries, from Afghanistan eastward to the Great Gobi Desert, only a handful of humans have seen one in the wild. In the lonely mountain ranges of Central and South Asia—amidst an unrelenting and frigid terrain of snowcapped pinnacles and secluded, craggy bluffs—with their smoky gray coats and softly blurred charcoal markings, snow leopards can vanish right within your gaze to nothing more than another rock, a scraggly shrub, a lifeless shadow.
A purple finch flutters from the small grove of firs, and at the base of the trees I sense two shadows stir, alert to each detail of the tiny bird’s movements. Then, in a synchronized streak of sleek black and gray forms, both cats spring from cover out onto the rockfall—Bashur in the lead by a nose before Willow—vaulting a good thirty feet from the firs, just as the bird comes to rest on a boulder. Sharpened claws in a swipe reach to seize tail feathers as the finch flaps its wings once again to take flight, and for a moment I’m breathless in anticipation (wishing almost as much for Bashur’s success as for the finch in escaping its fate). Then, astonishingly, the bird soars up higher, far out of reach of the snow leopard’s grasp—from a halfhearted effort by Bashur, I am certain.
The cats track the finch in its flight for a moment, then both pairs of eyes turn toward the trail where I stand. Notwithstanding the time I have spent with each leopard, I lose track of my thoughts in their calm, studied gaze. Looking into their world from my human perspective, I find mindfulness in their quiet contemplation, remarkable awareness in their sensitivity, and wisdom in their feline capability to exquisitely adapt to our endlessly changing world. As my breath matches theirs with each heave of their chests, it’s as if for an instant the glass wall has melted and I’m standing alone—just a mere leap away—held as if I were prey by my own fascination.
The cloud bank rolls closer and an icy breeze stirs the leaves of the shrubs at the base of the boulders, and Willow turns her gaze to face into the wind. Her broad nostrils widen and twitch with piqued curiosity while a gust brushes through the long locks of her fur to reveal the thick down of her paler gray undercoat. She considers the news that the blast of air brings her—whiffs of the red pandas and Indian rhino swept from their habitats and carried downwind, their keeper approaching with fresh meat in her arms, the strength of the storm that is building above us and first whirl of snowflakes beginning to fall—then she stretches and wanders head into the wind. While Bashur stays in place to consider me longer, I catch Willow behind him a dozen yards off, pawing then rolling in a thick bed of straw that their keeper no doubt has laced with fresh scents of antelope, zebra, or elephant. Then Bashur turns, pads off, and joins Willow upwind.
As the storm comes upon us, the snow drives down with fury, stinging my eyes and cheeks with small, icy flakes that quickly envelop the landscape around me. Through the thick veil of white, I can make out the leopards—Bashur standing by Willow as she rolls in the straw and its blanket of snow. And in spite of the bitter wind numbing my body, I smile at the chance to be out in this blizzard alone with the leopards.
By this time most mornings, I can watch zoo guests strolling along the bend in the trail just above where I stand. Mothers meander with newborns in strollers. Young children excitedly tug at their daddies’ arms. Students with notebooks race in teams on scavenger hunts, hoping to answer all of their teachers’ questions. I see them rushing up to the windows to catch sight of the leopards, chatting and giggling while craning their necks, scanning the rock wall, the bushes, the pond.
All the while, Willow and Bashur lie in hiding—sometimes in the fir grove concealed by the shadows, other times in the open, blending in with the rocks—camouflaged from all but the most discerning eyes. Avoiding the babble and hubbub of humans, just as their cousins do out in the wild. Even researchers who have devoted their lives to snow leopards, spending years in the mountains at the top of the world on the trail of their paw prints, scratch marks, and scats, tell tales of nearly stumbling over them—not a hiss, not a growl, frozen in utter silence—before the large cats betray their disguise and bolt off reclusively into the distance. Never once has a snow leopard attacked a human in the wild. Instead, they retreat farther into the mountains, no matter how fervently we search for them, a vestige of nature untouched and unspoiled. Ghosts of the mountains in their last lonely vistas.