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Snow leopards have been studied for over a century, specifically by the western world; they got heavily promoted by western media and TV as a rare sensation of the mountains (e.g. Matthiesen 2008). Realities do differ though, and here I show that the snow leopard is virtually free of Open Access data shared with the global public; many of its data are incomplete or come from zoos and captive animals in the U.S. (but not from zoos in Canada or EU etc or from the wild!).

This podcast is based on our snow leopard study below (Huettmann 2020) using GBIF.org data, and I elaborate what this lack of data sharing means for an intransparent and not repeatable science and governance, why that is, and that it must be improved for better decisions with NGOs, nations like China & India, development aid agencies, extractive industries, corporations and other funders worldwide based on the snow leopard as a global icon of open access data sharing failure waiting for betterment. 

Citations

Huettmann F. (2020) Chapter 23. A governance analysis of the snow leopard, its habitat and data: Who owns charismatic animals and who drives and uses the agenda for what? In: G.R. Regmi and F. Huettmann (eds). Hindu Kush-Himalaya Watersheds Downhill:  Landscape Ecology and Conservation Perspectives. Springer Gland, Switzerland. pp. 459-472.

Kandel K, F. Huettmann, M. K. Suwal, G.R. Regmi,V. Nijman, K.A.I. Nekaris,S.T. Lama,A. Thapa,H.P. Sharma and T.R. Subedi (2015) Rapid multi-nation distribution assessment of a charismatic conservation species using open access ensemble model GIS predictions: Red panda (Ailurus fulgens) in the Hindu-Kush Himalaya region.Biological Conservation 181: 150-161.

Matthiesen P (2008) The snow leopard. Penguin Classics. London.