Directors cut: "How often can big cats be black"

A DSLR camera trap in Thailand's Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary captured this image of a melanistic leopard.

Melanism in cats

About a month ago, Panthera's Senior Digital Writer contacted Dr. Olutolani Smith and myself (the resident Panthera genetics gurus) about a Facebook follower's questions on melanism in jaguars and leopards, which was made in response to a recent blog post and interview by Dr. Alan Rabinowitz.

Dr. Smith and I each responded separately, and while predictably providing some overlapping information, we also offered some unique insights in our answers, likely as a result of our different backgrounds and interests. Our responses were well received and Panthera decided to turn them into a blog post, which was posted a couple weeks ago, "How often can big cats be black?". The post combined Dr. Smith's and my responses, reduced redundancy and shortened the text to fit with the idea of shorter, more easily consumed online content. It turned out great. However, I got to thinking that for those looking for a bit more detail, Dr. Smith's and my original responses may be of interest. So for those who just can't get enough, please see below for our initial takes on the question posed on Panthera's Facebook page about melanistic cats:

“Why is it that black leopards are more common than black jaguars, when for leopards it is a recessive gene, and for jaguars it is a dominant gene? Wouldn't a dominant gene occur more frequently in the wild than a recessive gene? Does it only appear to be this way because leopards have been more easily bred in captivity to produce them, [and] jaguars don’t breed as well in captivity? “Black jags, may also be harder to find in the dense forests and so appear rarer in the wild than wild black leopards. Does a mutation like melanism occur frequently in the right environment, or are the only occurring instances of the gene come from being inherited/passed down?”

From Dr. Byron Weckworth, Regional Scientist and China Program Director of our Snow Leopard Program:

In the wild, surveys of confirmed melanism in both jaguars and leopards show that the frequency is about 10% for each species. You could be right that the perception of frequency is impacted by how melanistic leopards are more prevalent in popular media, etc. But the reality is that, in the wild, the frequency is about the same.

Yet, as you observed, melanism in jaguars is determined by the dominant allele of a gene, vs. recessive in leopards. So why aren't black jaguars everywhere, or at least more common? In a similar scenario in humans, polydactyly (having more than five fingers/toes) is also usually a dominant trait, so why aren't there more people with six fingers? To better understand this question, we need to take the next step in our understanding of genetic inheritance of traits.

It is true that in a randomly mating population, absent any evolutionary mechanisms (e.g. genetic drift, mutation, natural selection), that we would expect a dominant trait to proliferate to higher frequency than a recessive trait. This is called Mendelian inheritance, which forms the basis of your excellent question.

However, populations are rarely mating randomly (i.e., inheritance of traits is not random), and when we add in evolutionary forces like mutation and natural selection, models of Mendelian inheritance can break down. Also consider that even if a trait is dominant, it may be so rare in the population that its frequency will always be limited (such is the case in polydactyly), which is one reason that might explain why even if melanism is a dominantly inherited trait in jaguars, it can also be rare. Dominant in inheritance doesn't mean dominant in function, which relates to natural selection (see below).

The mutation that causes melanism in leopards and jaguars is different in each species. For leopards, melanism is caused by a recessively inherited mutation that inhibits a gene function related to coloration. This happens via a complicated biochemical pathway coded by that gene that usually results in a "normal" colored cat, but is disrupted by the mutation and results in a melanistic animal. But in jaguars, the mutation is on a different gene, is dominantly inherited, and results in a gain of function in that gene, activating a different biochemical pathway that produces the same melanistic trait in the cat.

As mentioned above, if we map all the confirmed occurrences of jaguars and leopards across their global distributions, we see that about 10% of individuals in both species are melanistic. However, the cases of melanism are not evenly distributed across their ranges. In fact, if you use complex statistical models of these occurrences with environmental factors, the results show there are much higher incidences of melanism—in both species—associated with more moist habitats (which correlates with dense forests).

For leopards, there are no confirmed sightings of melanistic cats in Central Asia or far east Asia, places where the habitat tends to be more temperate and open. The same is true for melanism and habitat types for jaguars in the Americas. The conclusion here, when we see non-random distribution of a trait, is that there is likely some sort of adaptive selection occurring where melanism is either advantageous (or disadvantageous) in certain environmental conditions. That melanistic cats are more common in moist forests suggests an adaptive advantage to the trait in these environments, perhaps related to thermoregulation or some other functional characteristic.

From Dr.Olutolani Smith,  Consultant Geneticist working with the Tigers Forever Program:

I agree with Dr. Weckworth’s comments—it’s a brilliant question and one I hadn’t really thought about before. 

A couple of papers by Eizirik et al.  and Schneider et al. explain the genetic basis of melanism in Felidae. They conclude that melanism is present in about 13 of the 37 felid species—so, not just jaguars and leopards—and that there are different color phases in some of the other species, such as Geoffroy’s cat, oncilla, Pampas cat, and Asian Golden Cat.

Melanism is strongly related to two particular genes in mice—ASIP and MC1R. ASIP (agouti signalling protein) is involved in hair follicles producing a color pigment. MC1R (melanocortin 1 receptor) is a gene that codes for the receptors that control pigment formation.

When they looked for similar mutations in domestic cats and other wild cats, the Eizirik group found that melanism arose at least four different times in Felidae, and each mutation is slightly different in each of the cat species affected. 

For example, the jaguar mutation is a 15 bp deletion in MC1R, and the jaguarundi mutation is a 24 bp deletion at a different site of the MC1R gene. Affected jaguars are homozygous (two copies of the mutation) or heterozygous (one copy of the mutation), and wild-type or normal jaguars are homozygous for the full gene. This implies that the mutation has a dominant effect.

In leopards, the melanism is thought to be caused by a small mutation in the ASIP gene, but this is inherited as a recessive trait, meaning that only homozygous individuals with two copies of the mutation are melanistic.

It was initially assumed that these melanistic mutations have an adaptive advantage under certain ecological circumstances, which is why they have persisted. And perhaps what happened is that they appeared spontaneously, as most mutations do, and persisted because of this advantage. Cats with the melanism gene, whether it is a dominant or recessive trait, will be positively selected for where it is advantageous, and hence you will find more melanism in certain regions.

It seems that melanistic forms for both jaguars and leopards are more likely to be found in moist forests (for example, more melanistic leopards are found in Southeast Asia, and none have been documented in regions like the Russian Far East and China). And, as Dr. Weckworth pointed out, although the mutations are inherited in a slightly different way, they affect different genes, and the frequency of the phenotype (melanism) in jaguars and leopards is essentially the same. 

Myanmar Expedition: The search for snow leopards

“They spoke of a mysterious cat of the mountains. But, I never saw one.” 

Myanmar Tibetan Buddhist hunter from Dahawndum

The Last Village, Dahawndum, a Buddhist community that is as close as humans in Myanmar get to snow leopards. The ancestry of these people belies their geographic location in the jungle. They have closer ties to Tibetan Buddhists high on the Tibetan Plateau, who famously dwell among the snow leopards, than to any of the many ethnic groups adjacent to them in the south. Yet, it appears that life in the jungle had filtered out any cultural relevance of the mountain cats.

Rugged, snow-capped peaks rise beyond our guest home in the Last Village, Dahawndum.

During our 17 day trek through the jungles, the initial stage of the 50 day expedition, we questioned villagers whose homes we passed through, had they ever heard of a snow leopard? Had they ever seen a skin or other parts? The answers were always ‘no.’ The cat was completely unknown to them. In retrospect, this might not be too surprising. I can think of few habitat comparisons as different as jungle and the high elevation range typical for snow leopards. Most of the people living in theses tropical forests know little about the lands above treeline, much less that a large cat might be there. We would be going into a region and landscape where our Myanmar partners had very little exposure and experience.

A stark contrast between the dense vegetation of the jungle versus the barren, vertical landscape of the mountains (photos by Jigmet Dadul)

However, some of the villagers did venture upward and northward. In his youth, the elderly hunter above, and his peers, would make the trek high up into the mountains to hunt for meat, likely in the form of ungulates like blue sheep, takin and goral. His answer was in response to our questioning about whether he, or anyone he knew, had ever seen a snow leopard. This is why we came, to seek out indigenous knowledge and use it to help find out for ourselves, do snow leopards inhabit Myanmar?

The team, with many of our porters, prepare to leave Dahawndum.

On May 21^st, four days after departing Dahawndum, and following an acrobatic bushwhack up and down dangerous jungle slopes, we set our first base camp at around 3500 meters (11,500 ft.). Gazing up at the cloud enshrouded peaks and ridgelines that started at 4500 m (14,800 ft.) and extended above 5500 m (18,000 ft.), we recognized one immediate challenge; an incredible amount of snow had persisted through the warm spring. While nights in camp would see temperatures near freezing, day time highs, when the sun showed itself, exceeded 15° C (60° F). Yet, the extensive winter snowfall defied full spring melt-off, not only higher up but also in the valley bottoms, where large snow fields smothered much of the terrain.

Our first Base Camp, nestled in the Garlan Razi valley at about 3500m.

The deep, wet snow provided not only a physical challenge, but also an impediment to our typical snow leopard survey techniques. When looking for snow leopards in a previously undocumented region one of the first places we look for sign is in the flat areas at the base of cliffs, a geographic feature targeted by snow leopards to spray, scrape and defecate as scent marks within their home ranges. Because these marking sites are often revisited, they make excellent locations for camera traps. Unfortunately, deep snow filled in many of these target areas, not only for us to investigate, but for snow leopards to use throughout the winter.

Considerable snow persisting into early summer impacts classic snow leopard survey sites such as the base of cliffs (photo on right by KC Namgyal) and boulders (video by Jigmet Dadul)

A second target site for our camera traps is along ridgelines. Snow leopards frequently navigate their landscapes by following the narrow, rugged ridgelines. These provide appropriately narrow, linear features to target as detection sites for the cat, where rock cairns are often built to stage the camera. The deep snow precluded access to stones for building a cairn. Not only that, but as the snow melts any camera set on top of it would shift, likely fall and perhaps even be lost as it tumbled from the precariously steep ridgeline down the slopes below.

On the left, Jigmet Dadul hikes a ridge high above the valley floor. On the right, a classic ridge set for a camera trap (both photos by KC Namgyal)

These challenges, on top of the inherent difficulty in navigating the landscape, meant that our team had to do significantly more reconnaissance and cover much greater distances on a daily basis than would be necessary with less snow. The team’s incredible effort and tenacity paid off, and we were able to place 80 camera traps in spots not only likely to detect snow leopards, but also many other animals navigating the terrain, including potential prey species.

Now, the ultimate question; after covering all of that ground, did we find definitive sign of snow leopards? The quick answer is, no. The follow up question, do we think snow leopards could be there? That answer is a bit more nuanced.

Although this year appeared to exceed average snowfall, it is likely that every year, during the winter months, deep snow levels eliminate any vegetation that would support local ungulate populations. Without prey there are no predators. However, there is an incredibly productive spring green-up that was just getting underway during our visit. Fresh sign of blue sheep, goral, takin and leaf deer was apparent, suggesting that as the snow melts and new vegetation emerges, ungulates are moving back into the area. It is highly probable that carnivores, including snow leopards, would track the ungulate movements and follow them into our study area. These kinds of seasonal shifts in animal distributions are not unknown.

Top photo, blue sheep pellets amidst the new spring green-up. Bottom photo, fresh ungulate tracks (bottom photo by Jigmet Dadul)

At the time of this posting, our Myanmar Forestry colleagues are back in Hkakabo Razi National Park to collect the 80 camera traps. As well, the 19 scat samples collected during our time in the field are currently being analyzed in a lab. In a few short months we may finally have an answer as to whether the “mysterious cat of the mountains” seen by traditional Myanmar Tibetan Buddhist hunters has been the snow leopard all along.

Team enjoys lunch with a view as the clouds part for the first time in weeks. From left to right, KC Namgyal, myself, Asin and Jiang Su.

Myanmar Expedition: Catching up

It is clear that, for me, pulling off a regular blog post has not been in the cards. It doesn’t feel that long, but I see that it has been 3 years since my last post. One reason for this is that my employer, Panthera, has a platform now for field staff, among others, to post blogs about developing projects and experiences related to our ongoing conservation efforts. Writing a blog there and the same thing here has seemed redundant. 

In point of fact, with relation to my recent expedition to Myanmar, I have made two posts, one at the outset and another upon my return. These blogs are not entirely my own work, but also involve considerable effort by our communications staff to hone raw work into a product that, in their experience, is more palatable by the Panthera website’s visitors. I always appreciate their input and help. Sometimes, however, the restrictions placed on format, amount of content, etc. end up whittling down my original work considerably. In these cases, including one coming soon, I may feel compelled to post a longer form version on this blog site. Stay tuned for an upcoming post about looking for snow leopards on the Myanmar Expedition.

The Return of the Itinerant Biologist

Yaqu Monastery Outpost, where we stage our multi-carnivore program

What can I say? I started this blog two years ago with the intent of providing a running commentary of stories and photos to let all those interested know about my adventures in Central Asia. For many reasons, after only 3-4 months, I fell behind, stopped posting and altogether stopped thinking about the blog. A lot has happened since my last post; I spent time in Mongolia learning how to trap snow leopards, went to a multi-stakeholder snow leopard workshop in Kyrgyzstan, saw a snow leopard (and many other cool things), got engaged to a smart and beautiful woman, published papers, made new friends, met a new family member and a had a whole slew of minor experiences that might make for entertaining stories. Outside the scale of some of the international travel, I suppose it is easily summed up as living life, my experiences of parallel equivalence to many of yours. Over the year and a half since my last post I have had many inquiries on whether I was still writing my blog, and for whatever reason, I have felt compelled to make an entry now. 

Some of the landscape of Suojia.

I’m sitting in a hotel room in the frontier town of Zhidoi, in Qinghai, China, on the Tibetan Plateau. We are in the middle of a trapping session, taking a break to address other work obligations and to get a shower. One of the primary objectives of my position in China is to start a multi-carnivore research program to better understand the ecological underpinnings operating within a diverse carnivore guild on the Tibetan Plateau. Central among these carnivores are the critically endangered snow leopards. The gist of this program is to study not only the individual species of carnivores (including Tibetan brown bear, snow leopards, wolves, Tibetan fox, red fox and Pallas’s cats), but more importantly, the relationships between species and how they influence one another’s existence across the landscape. Snow leopards and wolves overlap in the type of prey they consume, brown bears will steal kills from snow leopards, foxes often feed upon the kills of the larger carnivores, fox and Pallas’s cats rely heavily on pika. All of them rely on pika and marmots to some extent. Among this intricate web of relationships is also the presence and persistence of the indigenous nomadic Tibetan herders. Their existence is as much a fixture of the landscape as the carnivores and their prey, and they must be considered within the ecological framework of conservation planning. Human-wildlife conflict is a constant across the world, and it is no different on the Tibetan Plateau where carnivores kill valuable livestock (the “savings accounts” for most herders) and where bears frequently break into houses in search of food. As human-carnivore conflict continues to escalate, herder communities are increasingly vocal for the removal of carnivores. The Chinese government’s confiscation of all firearms prevents the direct retaliatory killing by herders that is seen in other countries, but as anxieties peak it may only be a matter of time before covert anti-carnivore activities threaten these animals. On top of that, the increased tension caused by human-carnivore conflict undermines the progress of important conservation efforts necessary for the protection of the fragile landscape that they all share.  Strategies must be put in place to ensure the long term viability of the system that will work for all the players, including humans.

A snow leopard checks out an old blue sheep kill. The valleys are filled with tracks and carcasses.

Snow leopard passing by one of our box traps (Byron Weckworth/Panthera).

In order to know where and how best to enact effective policy and management strategies we first have to understand the system in which they are to be implemented. That brings us back to the trapping session. Currently we’re trying to get GPS enabled collars onto both fox species and Pallas’s cats, thus beginning to understand their use of the landscape at a level of detail that has never been done before. The GPS collars are scheduled to turn on every 5 hours and take a GPS location. After weeks and months (and eventually years) of data are accumulated, the thousands of GPS locations help define habitat use and movement patterns of the species that wear the collars. Comparing the data across species helps define the commonalities and differences between them. There are many other aspects of behavior and ecology that can be analyzed, but I’ll save the lecture for another time. Suffice it to say, catching wild animals serious business. Animal welfare is always foremost in my mind; but the challenge of it all can be quite fun. Matching wits with the carnivorous denizens of the Tibetan Plateau. I’ve copied an excerpt from an e-mail written to Julie below. I think it provides a nice description of a day in the life of this kind of field work.

A Tibetan Fox ignores the bait and the trap. Bugger.

Applying a scent lure to one of our Pallas's cat box traps. Perfumes and such have been successfully used in the capture of other cat species, we thought we'd give this a try.

“Yesterday (the 5^th) was quite an eventful and busy day, for multiple reasons. I think I mentioned in the last e-mail that we had set some leg-hold traps around a Pallas’s cat den. Well, by the 1 AM checkup (or 1:30 AM in Yanlin’s case) we got an active signal from the trap transmitter. We zoomed to the site and found ourselves with an extremely upset Steppe Polecat in the trap. Crazy, I didn’t even know they were around here. He was ferocious despite having both back legs trapped. I was thankful for the leather gloves I handled him with as I could feel his needle sharp teeth even through them. It was kind of fun, but a bit disappointing. We had our hands full, and it was dark, so we didn’t get any photos. However, the camera trap set up at the site caught one that I feel sums up the experience from the polecat's point of view.

Steppe polecat caught in one of our leg-hold traps. He was okay and ran off without any injuries, except perhaps a bit of his pride.

The capture had us pretty jacked up, so I don’t think either of us got to sleep until after the 4 AM check, then up again at 7 to get the day going. Long night, not much sleep, but I haven’t been that tired. Anyways, the rest of the day continued to run along at a busy clip. We got up in the morning and did some hiking around in the fresh snow to see if we could track down some other den sites. It was a glorious day, starting off with blue skies and sunshine, glistening off the newly fallen, and rapidly melting snow (maybe some photos attached). Up in the mountains I found a meadow that appeared as if Pallas’s cats had been frolicking through it all morning. Tracks crisscrossing everywhere, including a set that had been coming from the direction I was walking, but abruptly turned tail and ran, retracing its steps. I guess I interrupted its frolick. The only possible den sites found were in areas that would be particularly treacherous in the wee hours of the night and morning, likely times for catching the cats. We abandoned that for the time being and returned to the known den site to reset the trap the ferret had tripped and do our usual morning walk-by to visually check all the traps. At a possible fox den we had set up a box trap with the apple mash bait, and had the bait taken now two days in a row, but the little critter could not be coaxed into entering the trap.  We decided to set up a leg-hold trap to use that strategy against him. We set that up and then Yanlin did his first trap set on a narrow path along the river that looked well traveled by Pallas’s cats (via tracks and scats). It was a good one.

My main colleague in all of this work, Dr. Yanlin Liu. Here setting his first trap set for a hopeful Pallas's cat capture.

The Pallas's cat (also known as Manul) refusing to enter the box trap, thus necessitating the leg-hold traps.

When we returned to the Monastery, the place was abuzz with activity. You might remember that Disney film crew I had mentioned before? Well, they had arrived in force, two SUVs and two loads of people, including Tibetan and Chinese guides, a British guy representing the contracted film team, the appropriate Chinese liaison, etc. Apparently they had all heard about Yanlin and I. I don’t know what they’d heard because really, it’s not like there’s a lot out there on me, but maybe it was through Chinese channels? Anyways, we chatted it up with them, offered some advice on finding snow leopards with only six days of effort (buy a lottery ticket like the rest of us), and otherwise mundane chit chat. The day went on, I finished my sequencing work and moved on to defining haplotypes and otherwise enjoyed the sunny, beautiful day. I’ve been working mostly in the car these days as it is warmer and lighter than the cold, dark innards of the monastery complex where we stay.

Lunch break at the monastery.

After dinner, which I have to admit has not been that bad this trip, Zhala has been cooking and he’s becoming quite accomplished, I settled down to continue the genetics work. Yanlin walked out for the 10 PM check and rushed back in with the news that we had two traps with active signals…the same trap that had caught the polecat early that morning and the new trap we had set up for the fox. We went to the fox trap first, and it was a false alarm. There has been a lot of interference in the area, on the receiver, that has made some of the trap transmitters difficult to hear, that was the mix up here. So then on to the Pallas’s cat den site, where we were half expecting to find the polecat all pissed off again…instead, a Pallas’s cat!

Fitting the collar appropriately.

Having conferred with folks who had trapped Pallas’s cats before, I was told that they just lie down in the traps and lay still, their anti-predator response. Apparently this guy (and it was a male) didn’t get the memo. We waltz in there, gear readied to the side, expected to grab him, remove the trap, check for injuries, do measurements, attached a collar, etc. and be lickity split out of there… instead, we were met by one pissed off male Pallas’s cat. There was hissing, spitting, growling, snapping, the works. My first thought was, and I said it out loud, I really wish we had some drugs. I had set the trap in such a way that the animal could huddle inside the entry way of the den, to offer some shelter/comfort for the time between being caught and us getting there to immobilize it. This worked against us as he held the threshold at all costs. It was like that second Lord of the Rings movie, but without any hope for Gandalf to arrive at the pivotal moment. Here, I’ll also point out that a year ago we had done some extensive shopping in Xining to get all the gear we’d need for capturing and handling non-drugged animals like foxes and Pallas’s cats. This included a couple pairs of the perfect leather gloves. They were thick and dense, to ward off teeth, but still allowed for enough dexterity to be confident in holding an animal without hurting it and without it being able to wiggle free to bite or escape. We also had found great gloves for setting traps, etc.  They all had disappeared, and in their stead we had the best we could find in Zhidoi, which wasn’t great. Back to the Pallas’s cat holding the pass at Thermopylae; you know that my concern is always first for the animal and second for the people, but pretty equally both in this case, given that the nearest hospital is a 14 hour bumpy ride of hell, and then for a real hospital another half day of flights to get to Beijing. Yanlin and I are trying to sort it out and I start to gingerly pull on the trap, where his right front leg is securely attached. He’s not thrilled but relinquishes a bit of ground, and then with cobra like speed, Yanlin grabs the scruff of his neck, I drop the trap and place a baby’s knit hat over his head. Done, he’s down for the count. The hat helps a lot, but he’s still making some noises to express his displeasure, but even those go silent.

Taking measurements, hair sample and otherwise recording details of the animal.

I’m suspicious. I warn Yanlin not to fall into false confidence, that this guy could bolt at any time. Given that, we decide to put the collar on first, just in case. But it is difficult, his head and neck are covered with the hat, Yanlin is controlling the head and the torso and I’m trying to work around it to properly fit the collar. I’m immediately skeptical when I grab the collar that has been sized for Pallas’s cats. It has a size range of 16-19 cm circumference.  I wrap it around his neck, and sure enough, it isn’t close, it’s inches short of one side even touching the other, much less bolting together. So I return to the gear bag and grab the fox collar. Again, it is still easily an inch to 1.5 short. The fox collar is sized for 21-24 cm circumference. Luckily, I had foreseen such a possibility, and in Zhidoi (when we were scrambling to replace the missing gloves) I had also bought a length of webbing (like what you’d use to make a belt). I whipped that out and started making an extension. Mind you, the temperature is about -3 C and the wind is picking up, so my fingers are going numb (but hey, it was still balmy compared to collaring moose in -30!). I punch some holes in the webbing to match up with the holes on the collar belting (also punching a hole in one of my fingers…but it wouldn’t be me if I weren’t bleeding at least a little bit) and I head back to the cat, which Yanlin is expertly holding. I get the collar on, but I’m uncertain, the cat is curled into a fetal position, seemingly calm, but again, with me anticipating it trying to bolt, or bite, at any moment. So I play with the collar a bit to ensure a proper fit, critical for efficient operation of the collar, but more importantly for animal safety. Luckily the cat plays along, and we end up with a good fit.

It's in the bag.

Given that, we weigh the animal, in a bag, get the sex, do some rudimentary measurements and grab a hair sample. With that, we let him get, he bounds away with as much dignity as he can muster and, more importantly, without any hint of a limp or injury. This morning’s telemetry check indicated he had traveled some distance away, my guess to a secondary den, far away from the nightmare of the American and Chinese mugging. But, I hope he wanders back to his old den by July, so that we can recapture him and give him a brand new shiny collar to tell us what he’s up to over the summer and fall.”

The only mammal around to enter one of the box traps.

A Bit About Tibetans

 Where to begin? It has been almost two weeks since I left the giant metropolis of Beijing for the Tibetan Plateau. There are a number of independent story lines that I could easily blog on for days: adjusting to living and working at >14,000 ft; any one of a number of individuals with whom I have had the pleasure of getting to know; the Buddhist monasteries I have been staying at; the Buddhist monks themselves; the pika and their history of persecution; or any of the amazing wildlife species I have seen, such as marmots, blue sheep, wolves, Pallas’s cat, Tibetan fox, bearded vultures, or even the gorgeous Tibetan Wild Ass (yes, I hear you snickering). I could write about the Tibetan landscape, the combination of rolling grasslands that meet round hilltops leading to jagged rocky mountains, home to the snow leopard. Heck, I could probably write a good couple of pages on milk tea (just what it sounds like, part unpasteurized yak’s milk and part black tea), how ubiquitous it is at any and all social gatherings and how sick it makes me. The truth is, I have been overwhelmed with trying to sort out what to write about in this first blog from the Tibetan Plateau.

The best photo I could get of the Tibetan Wild Ass.

One of the millions of Pika around the Suojia monastery. They're quite photogenic...from a safe distance.

I need to get an English language ID  book to sort out it's real name, but some of you may recognize this as the "blue poppy" from the movie Batman Begins...I haven't check it yet for its hallucinogenic properties.

Two young marmots prepare to dive into their burrow to escape the menacing photographer. Marmots provide an important food source for bears, among other carnivores, during their relatively brief period of activity. They spend nearly half the year in hibernation.

Likely snow leopard kill of a blue sheep. In some regions blue sheep are the largest ungulate available for predators, and thus are a crucial component for healthy snow leopard populations.

As I sit here writing, stalling, and waiting for a decision to present itself, a young monk-in-training silently enters the small classroom that my companions and I are currently resting within, he wordlessly sprinkles a pinch of tea leaves into my mug and fills it with steaming water from a giant cast iron kettle. He might be 13 years old, but already carries himself with a confidence that belies the age that his chubby cheeks and childish smile expose. He is clearly excited, in that way of adolescents, to be serving tea to a Meiguo (American), and he reminds me a bit of my nephew Chance.

Me trying to coax some young monks into a little photo shoot (photo credit: Yin Hang).

The three (and a half) brave souls who obliged.

We are currently staying at the Gongya monastery, one of over 140 monasteries in Nangqian county in southeastern Qinghai Province. We are guests of the Khenpo. I have not been able to get a name, everyone simply refers to him as Khenpo. Khenpo is a title obtained within the Buddhist hierarchy following completion of a particular set of studies. This Khenpo is quite young, perhaps in his mid 30s, and has risen quickly through the ranks. For his age he is remarkably advanced within the Monasteries. His platform of teachings is predicated upon environmental stewardship and taking responsibility for ones actions and how they affect your surroundings. He says that this stewardship is necessary not to protect the earth or nature or some abstract concept of the natural world; nor is it to appease the wishes of others – neighbors, NGOs, governments. Rather, it is for oneself, to keep intact the living system within which we all live and rely upon to survive. If you take care of your surroundings, you take care of yourself. This may be a difficult concept to buy into if your existence consists of a 500 square foot apartment in a city where you are surrounded by tens of thousands or even millions of other people whose actions dilute your own so much as to seem inconsequential. But on the Tibetan Plateau, where your nearest neighbor can be several miles or more away, this philosophy holds particular power, especially on a teetering landscape, overtly influenced by climate change. The Khenpo brings his teachings outside of the monastery walls and to the nomads and herders on the land in the form of workshops and lectures. These people are almost all Buddhist. Buddhism, he explains is environmentalism. The tenants of the religion lead to the same conclusions. To be a Buddhist is to be an environmentalist. This is the Khenpo’s mantra, and he has dedicated his life to spreading this philosophy among his fellow monks, to students through his teachings at the monastery schools, and especially to the people.

The Khenpo (far left) and other monks start with milk tea before a community meeting to discuss snow leopard conservation in Nangqian.

Some of my colleagues and I discussing community conservation plans with the Khenpo at the Gongya monastery (photo credit: Zhala).

The People. Of course, how can I not comment on the people? I came to the Tibetan Plateau, excited for the vast and rugged terrain, for the new wildlife and plant species I would see, for all of the natural grandeur I had envisioned. It was expected, and I have found that, but what was not as expected is the magnificence of the people. Tibetans are a beautiful people, both aesthetically and in the spirit in which they go about their existence. In comparison to the everyday activities in western societies, they appear to lead simple lives. However, this superficial simplicity should not be mistaken as also equating to simple minds or to easy lives. You can find surprising items in their tents, contradicting the apparent minimalism of their lifestyle, but the real complexity is in their character. The challenge of life on the Plateau, raising livestock on a vast and little developed landscape means self-sufficiency at a level most of us are unable to fathom. The ingenuity, fortitude and acumen they display are inspiring. To add to the challenges, this nomadic culture faces the same issues as pastoral societies across the world, including government meddling with their land use practices, the disenchantment of their youth with the lifestyle, and the friction resulting from clumsy integration of modern technologies.

Monastery in Suojia county where we stay while working in our western field sites.

Before I go on, I should make a disclaimer that the recounting of my experiences on the Tibetan Plateau is not meant as academically vetted social commentary, but simply my opinions and thoughts based upon what I have seen and some of the conversations I’ve had (via translated English) with a variety of individuals. Certainly these opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinions of my employer. There is every chance that some of my statements are factually inconsistent with reality or that my interpretations would not be entirely shared by those whom I impose them upon. We all interpret our interactions with the world differently, and your experience here might be much different. Having said all of that, this blog is simply the recounting of an American in China and valid as far as to the point that you agree with my philosophy on the world.

Whether bouncing along the rough roads of the open grasslands, or hiking though the steep-walled valleys of the Plateau, the Tibetan herders’ tents can appear seemingly anywhere (herders and nomads are synonymous and I use the terms interchangeably). During the winter months the herders tend to congregate in a region with more permanent infrastructure. Historically they lived in tents throughout the year, but now more spend winter months in houses -- especially with the recent government program to provide houses -- and have corrals for their livestock. However, from late spring until fall, they take their families and herds to the open range, living in tents, sometimes as single families, kilometers away from the next nearest nomad family, and other times in loose aggregates of multiple families, each with their own tent. The tents themselves vary as well. Traditionally they are woven from yak hair, but the synthetically produced white tents seem to be gaining in popularity and the art of weaving the traditional tents is in decline. Additionally, since the 2010 Yushu earthquake a large number of the blue “relief” tents distributed then have popped up across the landscape.

A Tibetan woman stands outside her traditional yak hair tent in Nangqian county. In this valley several families live in relatively close proximity, sharing the valley with their collective herds of yak, some sheep and several horses.

Myself and some of my colleagues after having lunch at a nomad's tent site. Here they're using the synthetic white tents and blue government relief tent. From left to right; Zhala, our Tibetan guide; Wenzha, Zhala's brother and an extra driver for a couple of days; our Tibetan hostess; me; Lingyun, a new PhD student on the snow leopard project; Charu Mishra of the Snow Leopard Trust and a close collaborator (photo credit: Liu Yanlin).

Inside the tents there are a number of staple items present. They all have beds that double as couches for visiting. They all have the ubiquitous stove found in all dwellings across the Plateau, house, tent or otherwise. These stoves provide a source of heat (fueled almost exclusively by yak dung) as well as a surface for cooking and boiling water and milk tea. There are cooking implement, food items (staples include: meat, yoghurt, butter, milk), some clothing and the random trinkets that all humans tend to collect. Most of the tents I have seen also have a solar energy setup, including solar panel and storage/dispensing system. After these essentials, items may include other bits of furniture, TVs, DVD players, laptops, electric lighting and a plethora of other modern technological gadgets. I’ll never forget the first time a middle-aged, traditionally garbed nomad man whipped out his i-phone.

Inside one of the white tents. Sod, mud and  yak dung are used to add vertical surfaces within the tent. Notice the pile of dried yak dung behind the woman, the primary fuel source for the ubiquitous stove (center). The man is hand-spinning yak hair (fuzzy undercoat hair I presume) into yarn. There are always multiple kettles being heated on the stove, one with water and one with milk tea.

I don’t know if Tibetan hospitality is legendary, but it should be. It is nearly impossible to pass one without being invited in for milk tea. Once you sit down, you get super-star treatment. Whoever in the family is present completely pause their lives and make you the focal point of their world. Whatever time of day, they offer food (usually yogurt and often some sort of flatbread or roll), if it is even remotely close to lunch or dinner time they begin preparing a meal. There is no way out of this predicament. So far it has not been possible to simply say hello and continue on. If you hike past a tent, schedule about an hour or so for the visit, even if they don’t speak Chinese and so there is no option for verbal communication (none of them speak English, it seems most know at least some Chinese and so can communicate with my colleagues, and half of the time I am with a Tibetan guide).

Yak yoghurt. It is unpasteurized and a bit lumpy. Heaps of sugar are added to compliment the sourness. Some people really dig it.

I cannot express how persistent this beverage is in every situation, at all times of the day in every location. Quite simply, milk tea is as much a part of the Tibetan Plateau as the grasslands, yak and snow leopards.

About four years ago the Chinese government began a program where they built permanent homes for the nomads and provided some rudimentary training to try and urbanize them around the scattered towns across the Plateau. One of the primary motivations for this was the idea that the nomads, with their herds of yak and/or sheep were having adverse effects on the Plateau’s grassland systems. There wasn’t any data indicating this, but that was the reasoning. The program at best is received with lukewarm reception and at worst is fracturing Tibetan life on the Plateau. In order for the program to work a Tibetan family moves to the government provided home, gives up their livestock for slaughter (therefore removing them as a burden on the grasslands) and finds employment in a town/city. This is rarely the outcome. Instead, a given family may make the new house their winter home and continue the nomadic lifestyle through the other season (as per above). Another outcome is that a family may make the permanent move, but keep their livestock, for which there is no place for them to be adequately maintained around the town site; or, the family makes the permanent move and simply gives/sells their livestock to a family member or friend and so there are still the same number of livestock out on the grasslands. This program to urbanize herding families is still new, and I am not aware of any formal evaluations on the results thus far, but it seems destined for failure on multiple levels. Even if, hypothetically, families moved into town and gave up their livestock, the training provided is hardly adequate for full integration into urban employment and there are not enough jobs available to employ everyone. The impending tragedy of social unrest and despair seems nearly certain.

Rows of government built houses provided to nomads. Who would want to live in such a place?

Another challenge to the lifestyle is the unyielding pressure of a developing world and the technology and shifting social values that accompany it. Most Tibetan herders do not value education. Schools are located far from families, and transportation is difficult meaning if a child goes to school, they move away. Given such little encouragement and value on the education, nomads that go through the educational system often become lost. Because they have been in a city going to school they have not learned the herding practices, and are reluctant to revert back to such a difficult lifestyle. However, because of lack of motivation, or expectations to do well, they do not finish school with many prospects. They are stuck in limbo, no direction, no ambitions, just simply existing.

The traditions of herding itself are under pressure. Horses were historically the primary mode of transportation and vehicle for moving and monitoring livestock herds. The horses are revered in these herding societies, and although motorcycles and trucks have largely replaced them, they are still celebrated with annual festivals that involve horse racing and horse related skills competitions. With the replacement of gasoline powered vehicles over grass-fed equines, there has been a shift in the distribution and range of herders. Whereas the horses can be fueled anywhere on the landscape, gasoline can only be found in specific areas and it is difficult to travel with quantities that would allow independence from these sources. I am not sure as to ramifications of these changes, and what the long term impacts will be, but it is possible that the reliance of being in certain proximity to fuel sources means certain areas of the grassland will be over-grazed, leading to degradation of that ecosystem. These changes and challenges to the herding lifestyle present an interesting conundrum that has implications on the conservation of both natural and cultural resources.

Not a great photo, but a rare site of horses saddled and in use for herding practices.

A variety of decorative horse garb on the wall of a tent.

The nomads are almost all devout Buddhists. The religious symbols and relics are another staple within most tents. This commitment to the Buddhist philosophy makes selling conservation goals and instilling community conservation projects  a much easier task than in most other societies. At the same time it is difficult to ask those who have so little, and live at the fringes of being self-sustaining to limit their use of the land, to endure depredation of their livestock or to expend the effort and expense of participating in the local conservation programs that we propose. But that same spirit of generosity persists even here. A couple days ago we went to the county hospital in Nangqian to meet a man who had been attacked by a snow leopard. He had been pushing through thick brush to try and flush out some lingering yak and somehow surprised the snow leopard. These attacks are extremely rare (I've only heard of one other), but that is of little solace to the victim. Yet, his attitude was that despite the attack or the fact that he has lost many livestock to snow leopards, he does not fault the animal, but rather accepts those acts as part of the ebb and flow of his life as a herder.

Buddhist temple in Nangqian county.

A family piles onto a couple of motorcycles to visit their local sacred mountain.

In many ways it is sad to see firsthand the dissolution of a historic way of life. I find myself wistfully thinking how cool it would be if these nomads still relied solely on horses and didn’t have smart phones. But who am I to deny anyone the opportunity to advance their lot in life, or have the comforts of modern conveniences? The change is inevitable and the future will be molded by a variety of factors, not the least of which is the political climate in China and the terse relations with Tibetans. This worries me even more. What I’m not worried about is the spirit of the people. I’ve remarked mostly on the nomadic Tibetan herders, but those individuals that I’ve encountered in other walks of life, including our field guide, Zhala, possess the same strength of character and generosity that I experienced in those herders’ tents. I really am in awe of how genuine and open these people present themselves. As I continue traveling across the Plateau, meeting new Tibetans, whether monks, herders, school teachers or housewives, I hope that whatever their future, the foundation of their legacy and the beauty of these people will remain.