Snow+Leopard-+Justine+G

=Snow Leopards=

By: Justine garcia
My animal is the Snow Leopard (Unicia) they live in the mountains of Central Asia (most live in China), they like to live in cold, high, rugged mountains in Central Asia. The snow leopard is a carnivore and tends to eat Blue Sheep, Mountain Ibex, and they can kill animals three times their weight, so their deadly, but they eat smaller animals like marmots, hares, and game birds. Nothing eats the snow leopard that I know of. The snow leopards generally mate at around the age 4 for both males and females, they mate at the end of the winter season and then the cubs are born in the spring. They stop being able to have babies at around 8 but some still do although its uncommon.They mate and then go their own ways and the female raises the cubs on her own, shes typically pregnant for 93-110 days and the litter is born around June, they usually have 2 to 3 cubs and they are live births. The cubs are small and helpless and don't open their eyes until their about 7 days old at around 2 months old the cubs can eat solid food. When their 3 months old they start following their mom around to learn important behavior like hunting. When they are 18-22 months old they become independent from their moms.The cycle then starts over.

The snow leopards are not extremely endangered but in just a short time they could be, right now their endangered in the IUCN list which means their endangered. Their endangered because poachers hunt them for their fur and bones which they use in Asian medicines, and they are killed because when their food is scarce they eat farmers sheep and that results in the farmer killing the snow leopard. Also they are running out of natural sheep because farmers get too many sheep in one place and that causes overgrazing, which then drives off wild prey and causing the snow leopard to not have a natural food source.One of the organizations that are helping them is Snow Leopard Trust and they are helping them by trying to understand snow leopards behavior and habitat, listening to people to find the needs of the snow leopard, and finding resources to provide for long-term projects. This is just one organization that is helping the snow leopards.

One way that I could help is to make artwork, I am an artist so that would be really fun. The society would then sell it and the money they make off it would be donated to help the Snow Panthers. I could do that, it wouldn't be that hard to do and it would help the snow panthers. I could also buy some of the things that they have on the website, like handbags($30), t shirts($30), and sunglasses cases($20)(all including shipping and handling), the money I spend would be used to help the Snow Panthers too. I could also "adopt" a baby snow panther and I would buy the baby and ALL that money($50) would help that specific snow panther to grow up with enough money to help protect it.


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 * http://www.iwallscreen.com/stock/snow-leopard-cub-wallpaper-by-fugal.jpg
 * http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/8640194/Snow-leopards-by-numbers.html

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