Just keep away from my lunch and we'll be just fine bro...

Last one for 2014.  This is Asa on 25 December 2014 enjoying his Christmas dinner.  I like it when I make a special effort to make lunch and the eater is prepared to kill anyone/anything who gets in the way of his/her enjoyment of said meal :)  Leopards are like that.  I'm fairly certain I was the same when I was one year old. I've mellowed a bit now but just don't come near my momos (or coffee) ok.

This image is now available at www.mountaintiger.photography - your purchases really help the causes.  This post is a heartfelt thanks to those who have helped in 2014, it's been quite a year.  2015 looms large in the conservation world... wildlife, habitat and people to have improvements, positive futures in the way that nature works, chaos and harmony combined, to give us life.

Trek on.  Jai Bagh.  My best to all, cheers Jack.

"Marking Territory"... and New Year's Best Wishes to all...

In the early morning light the young leopard marks his territory by scraping those razor sharp claws along the trunk of a fallen tree.  You can see his power now, a strength matched by the energy of a predator living free, wild where he supposed to be...

I've encountered Chituwa Asa twice in the last few days.  He is doing well.  In between times I've trekked long and hard, into valleys to understand yak pastures, onto a high ridge to spend an evening huddled by a fire while a local tells me of Himalayan Thar, Blue Sheep and Musk Deer.  My increasing understanding of predator activity is still dwarfed by the secrets of the mountains, some will be revealed, some not, keep an honest heart and let that be.

I visit a Health Post so as to learn. I talk to a man about his vision to plant the right crops that will strengthen a community and stabilize a deforested hillside.  I encounter someone from far away but close in understanding, we talk of wolves and things...

I buy a yak wool hat from a Tibetan refugee, she points out the holes in my boots.  "Yes, I know, I have been walking a lot" and she laughs, gives me butter tea, says I should have a rest.

I get back to the webbed world and there are lots of kind messages.  Photographs have sold and very kind contributions from people who believe and understand in the protection of habitat.  Thank you so much Bernd and Prajwol, exclusive images to you soon.

Not time to rest but maybe time for more tea.  Happy New Year.  Cheers Jack.

Good Morning, Namaste and Merry Christmas from the Himalaya...

It looks as if I'll be in Leopard Camp on Christmas morning so I'll say a big "have a good one" to everyone now.  Thank you for the wishes and support.  If I find Asa I'll try and post an image or two when I am back down in a couple of days.

The mountain is Annapurna South this morning.  I really like this hill.  I have been high on the ridge on the left hand side and hopefully in coming months will leave more cameras on unexplored ridges to find out more about Himalayan Thar, Blue Sheep and Snow Leopard, all part of the knowledge needed to increase protection of the area.

I met the young guy this morning after I had reappeared from the jungle where I was looking for big cat scat. He's a tough little kid, representative of the attitude here in the mountains where you suck it up and get on with it.  Health care and education are part of the conservation mix, my heart is very much with the people here as well as the wildlife in this demanding place.

I keep getting asked about video.  I'll repeat, can't do it sorry, you'll have to wait.  Upload speeds and other issues mean this is the case.  I have a lot of footage and when I show locals, trekkers etc there is a lot of wow... so when the time is right there will be some good stuff online.  Good people are helping with this.

Thanks to those who are using www.mountaintiger.photography to buy images.  It really helps and thanks for the feedback that it is working smoothly.  There'll be many more images in 2015, some special ones.  You can also buy the main signature image for the Asa side of things at www.wildtiger.org/mountaintiger

Ok, that's it from me for a couple of days.  Thanks for all the encouragement.  The young leopard and I are ready for the challenge of winter and as I say, nature will decide...

A big Kia Kaha, Jai Bagh, Merry Christmas and all that stuff... cheers Jack.

More camera trap images of Asa... UNESCO and a sanctuary for wildlife...

There’ll be more about the non-ganja influenced tiger sighting I was told about soon and thanks for the concern re my health in the previous post, don’t worry, I am very conscious of my proximity to Asa, there’s usually no problem except at feeding time and just sometimes I get close to observe and photograph because the zoom is interrupted by foliage etc.  Camera traps are such an important part of these projects, here’s just a few images from the last three days.  Setting them in the right places as well as making sure they are configured properly is labour intensive, not to mention the analysis of hundreds of images, something I’ll be doing during my down day today.

As you can see, Asa is in great condition.  I’ve mentioned before that I know every meeting could be the last and to be honest that is as much because of the threats to him as is full separation.  In saying that, at now about a year old Asa is showing great survival skills up there and in age is over a major hump.  The fact he has claimed the territory he is in speaks volumes.  Little is still known about the female leopard in the area, these things take time.

Territory is key for many reasons, I’ll elaborate on this soon but essentially my long term vision that part of the valley leading to the high peaks gets UNESCO status also means that it becomes a more effective wildlife sanctuary.  This is easier said than done, there are many issues and complexities.  The criteria is strict as it should be and sadly a lot of the obstacles are internationally driven, through stupidity.  There’s going to be some decent serves in my book, mark my words, some foreigners with really no conservation background pushing projects for gains of ego and dollars.  This will be stopped here and the model implemented beyond.  I am bloody determined about this.

At a local level there is a growing understanding as education improves.  A Nepalese friend last year described the country as a victim of kindness and this is true to an extent.  It is easy to hold out one’s hand, it is better to get that hand working and reap the rewards.  An attitude change is needed, corruption needs to be stamped on hard but these things are happening.  Last night a  long message conservation with an anti-poaching veteran, a hard but fair man, left us both optimistic... but that’s another chapter, hey I can’t tell you everything here, I’ve got bloody work to do!  The most important thing is that there are some excellent conservationists here, they just need to be resourced.  They are well aware of the mistakes the West has made and that some of the intact habitat here offers the last chance for many species, particularly mountain biodiversity.

This is a cause well worth fighting for, worth climbing steep slopes for, worth trekking hundreds of kilometres for...

Thanks for the support, hopefully a blog around Christmas time but be rest assured the young leopard is playing his part in making things happen.  Asa means “Hope”... yes, that’s true and hope leading to action means conservation success.  Cheers Jack.

That's close enough Kiwi... and a mysterious "tiger" sighting...

The camera trap image shows how close I can get to Asa when he is feeding but he will mock charge me from this distance.  This is natural behaviour.  Siblings, family members fight like hell when there is food around in all big cat dynamics and the fact I am not a big cat is important!  However, even though we have our moments of sheer angst Asa is submissive with me as his boss.  It's such an interesting thing, one minute he is snarling and dangerous, the next trying to lick my head.  I have many fantastic images, video footage and camera trap captures, the new strategy is working and the young leopard is in fantastic shape, very pleasing, I'll talk about this soon.

In the meantime, well, I get a lot of messages, calls etc with "I've seen a tiger!"... ok, tiger means many things here so I ask four questions:

Where did you see it?

What did it look like?

How big was it?

Do you smoke ganja? ADD ON QUESTION IF ANSWERED "YES" - How much?

There was a mysterious big cat sighting in the mountains recently.  I was assured a big smoke-athon was not taking place.

Watch this space...  Cheers Jack.

Images for 2015...

There's been a few extra posts at www.facebook.com/jackkinross and the galleries at www.mountaintiger.photography will be added to during 2015 to help fund our work.  Images of Asa, the Leopard of Hope, are already available at that site as well as how to make contributions at www.wildtiger.org/mountaintiger.
Asa has become increasingly difficult to photograph but I'll do my best to get something out before Christmas.  Cheers Jack.

Getting lost, communicating with the leopard in the wild while the snow changes everything...

Yes, the today photo is very bad but that's what it was like, snow, sleet, cold while the young leopard eats...

I didn't expect to be sitting here writing this tonight but the weather, well it's the Himalaya, have to be adaptable, do the whole change of plan thing quite a lot.

The leopard is the most adaptable of the wild cats, amazingly so.  There's no doubt this is part of the reason it is so persecuted and misunderstood.  The leopard has much less support, fewer friends than rock stars like the tiger and the snow leopard.  It is a marginalized animal which is deceasing in numbers because in so many areas of its range, from Africa to South East Asia, the leopard is not given full protection.

So while I was wandering around early this afternoon, lost in a rhododendron forest while snow was falling, the temperature dropping, looking for Asa, the said leopard was safely in the nook of a tree, warm and dry.  That being said, he did look surprised to see me.  I had given the special call, I saw a tree shake and the next thing Asa is peering round from the bottom of the trunk checking it is me.  He runs to greet me just as he did yesterday when the weather was fine with no snow.

The fact that I got lost and then somehow getting to that place without knowing Asa was there in that tree, in thick jungle, it's been like that for a while now, this communication between us, something I cannot explain and for now I don't really want to anyway.   There's no doubt leopards have some extraordinary abilities.  Only the cheetah is a faster cat and as well as being astonishing tree climbers leopards are great swimmers.  While little is known about the telepathic communication between family members it is known to exist, siblings understanding each other whereabouts while several kilometres away.

Maybe Asa is pulling me into his world.  Or maybe I am just waking up...

In the last post I mentioned my new feeding strategy.  It has gone well so far, in yesterday's easy weather and in today's difficult weather as you can see by the images.  I lugged meat in a drum from 2000m to 2700m, a lot of it in snow.  I will give more details about these tactics soon.

Tomorrow morning I head back up the valley, trekking for most of the day to retrieve cameras, then a long trek back the next day.  An unexplored ridge is drawing me, snow leopard may be there, perhaps Asa has told me this.

:)

Today marks forty-five weeks this leopard and I have been together.  I have to do some serious fundraising soon, sell a lot of photographs, this has not been an inexpensive gig, far from it.  The learning, the progress, make all this effort worth it.  I understand more than ever that the leopard is a super cat, an amazingly adaptable animal... with other mysteries attached to it, unspoken ones...