Extract from "Snowena"

She misses. I bite my tongue so she won’t hear my curse except as a faint whisper on the snow-heavy wind. She’s accepted the hide I film from, but she’s not eaten since yesterday morning. And I didn’t realise how much I was willing her on to a successful hunt this time.

She licks her paw, disdainfully, as if to distance herself from her failure, as a domestic cat might. I watch her. Gorgeous snowy-grey thick fur with clear black markings that blend in with the mountainside, the fur-padded, clumsy-looking paws somehow graceful when she runs, the long, long tail, balance-keeper as she hunts over ragged rocks.

I’ll have to return to camp soon, but while she’s still here I can film. It took six months to find her. I don’t want to lose her now.

She has a cave further up. It’s tempting to kill a mountain goat and leave it for her but that would do more harm than good. She needs to hunt. Each failure is practice. Each failure a chance to try again. Each success buys a few more days of precarious life up here in the Hindu Kush. Evolution made her a specialist, otherwise the mountains would have become over-run with goats devastating the little vegetation that grows and turning this rocky outcrop into an inhospitable wilderness.
Amazingly people choose to live here too. Goat herders mostly who stick with the only life they’ve known for generations instead of seeking an easier, but unfamiliar life in the city. I guess we’re all creatures of habit.

I couldn’t do it. Those shacks made from timber, mud and thatch are precariously balanced on the mountainsides and always look as if they are about to collapse. At least I know my tent’s temporary. How those guys actually live here... I watch them too. The women are up first, sweeping out, watering and feeding the domestic animals and getting water for the day. Breakfast is made and eaten, then the herders, wrapped in layers and hats, move their goats out onto the pastures, moving up and down the mountain with the seasons. They’ve seen a lot too. This area’s been fought over by the Taliban and Northern Alliance and has been used as routes to distribute opium. No wonder the villagers always look fearful, as if death might tap them on the shoulder at any moment.

There was a kafuffle this morning. One of the domestic goats had been attacked and coats of others clawed at by some wild animal. The villagers blame the snow leopard they know we’re trying to film. I don’t think it’s her though, but don’t have the language to tell them or explain. But they need to know what is terrorising their animals so will name the snow leopard because they know she’s there.

Further reading in “Gentle Footprints.”

Filming in the Hindu Kush

A poem today:

Filming in the Hindu Kush

She’s not a morning person,
much shaking and stretching
on her precarious haunt,
before she’ll stalk and make
a scent-disguising roll
in Himalayan dust and snow.

Villagers want rid, blaming her
for attacks on domestic animals.

Her wide-padded paws
perfect for balance.
Ironic my large carbon footprint
- the flight here, the four wheel drives
used to cart equipment up -
might save an endangered animal,
who eschews domestic goats.

Villagers watch via a laptop.
Smiles need no translation.

Each sighting of her creamy-silver
fur, long balancing tail, and I struggle
for breath. I’m not worth eating
so my affection’s unrequited.

Villagers comment,
“She’s my friend now.”

About the Writer Emma Lee

I’m Emma Lee, a published poet, short story writer, novelist, reviewer, blogger and competition judge. My poetry collection, “Yellow Torchlight the Blues” is available from Original Plus. My story “First and Last and Always” was included in “Extended Play” from Elastic Press, “Fifteen” was runner-up in the Leicester and Leicester Libraries short stories competition and published on the BBC Radio Leicester Website, “Restoration” was runner-up in the Writing Magazine’s ghost story competition and “Imprints” was highly commended in a Roadworks magazine story competition. I read my story “Lizzie’s Baby” at Short Fuse at the Y Theatre in Leicester (see photo above) and the story was also published in “Sein and Werden”. I’ve read my poems at diverse venues including Leicester City Football Club, Leicester’s Guildhall and at the Polyverse Festival at Loughborough University.

I’ve pretty much always been writing. Even before I could actually write, I used to create Lego houses, imagine who’d live there and create stories for them and their neighbours, essentially mini soap operas. My very first publication was with a story in the school magazine when I was aged 5.

Around the same time my love for cats developed. Our neighbours bought home a ball of grey fluff which would hide under the kitchen table and mew. She grew into an efficient hunter who didn’t take any nonsense from other neighbourhood cats. She also racked up an impressive 18 years.

I live in Leicestershire, not a county associated with big cats – Leicester Tigers rugby club has no direct link with the big cat – but foxes – Leicester City football club’s mascot is Filbert Fox, so named because the club’s former ground was at Filbert Street. There have been unconfirmed reports of a big black cat, possibly a panther, lurking around Aylestone Meadows, but no one’s uncovered any conclusive evidence yet. However, Leicestershire is birthplace to wildlife broadcaster David Attenborough and a jaguar was briefly in residence at Bosworth Hall, which was home to Lady Florence Dixie, a Victorian animal rights campaigner. The Dixie family founded the Dixie Grammar School in Market Bosworth, Leicestershire. The school calls its newsletter “The Snow Leopard” and has a snow leopard as their school’s badge because a snow leopard is featured in the Dixie family crest.

Snowena

My story is called “Snowena” which is the name given to the snow leopard by a girl called Rihanna who loves watching wildlife documentaries and getting as many facts about big cats as she can. When she grows up she wants to be a wildlife vet, preferably working in a wildlife sanctuary. Ideally all wild animals would be able to live in their natural habitat but for some that’s not possible.

She struggles over choosing a name because she believes she can’t think up a good enough one. She rejects her own name Rihanna, rejects her friend’s name, Ciara, because it’s Italian and the snow leopard’s not Italian, but doesn’t know any names from the snow leopard’s home. Rihanna’s going to ask her mum to adopt a snow leopard for her on her birthday.

After much thinking she settles on Snowena as a name.

Later Rihanna has to do a show and tell at school and wishes she had a laptop so she could simply show everyone the documentary about Snowena. Instead she does her show and tell about a panther as she has a toy panther called Ebony. Panthers are leopards with a condition, melanism, which turns the underlying fur black so they appear to have completely black fur. Jaguars can also develop melanism.

It's Snow Leopard Week

It's Snow Leopard Week, but quiet please! Unlike most big cats, snow leopards can't roar and their thick-furred, wide, padded feet don't make a noise either so they can't announce their presence. Combine this with their shy, secretive natures, perfect camouflage and you can see why they're difficult to spot.

Doesn't help that snow leopards tend to live at high altitudes, usually 3000+ metres above sea level and favour mountain ranges in Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, the Kyrgyz Republic, China, Mongolia and Russia. Snow leopards are territorial, but territories can overlap as they are not particularly aggressive at defending territories.

They are pefect hunters for their preferred prey of wild sheep and goats. They have also been know to hunt wild pigs, tahrs, Bactrian camels, gazelles, ibex and even marmots, with birds and hares if other prey is scarce. The rocky mountainsides and outcrops provide cover and the snow leopard's fur with its grey or black rosettes against a base colour of pale grey or a smoky yellow, gives it excellent camouflage. Their wide paws help them stalk and give chase over snow. Their long tails, almost the same lenght as their bodies, help them balance. Snow leopards wrap their tails around their body when they sleep to help keep them warm.

Each snow leopard has a unique pattern of rosettes on their fur. Their stocky bodies and small round ears help minimise heat loss.

The snow leopard mating season is usually between January and mid-March with cubs being born in June or July. Litters are usually two to three cubs and the cubs will eat their first solid food at around two months. Cubs will stay with their mother for nearly two years before leaving to find their own territories. Siblings will sometimes stay together to start with but will separate.

Snow leopards are sadly endangered. It's estimated there are around 3500 - 7000 in the wild. As with most big cats, the biggest threats are the illegal fur trade and loss of habitat/prey. It takes six to twelve snow leopard skins to make a coat and body parts, including bones, are sometimes used in traditional Asian medicine. Loss of prey is down to a combination of people encroaching on traditional snow leopard territories and over-grazing by domestic herds which leaves less food for wild grazing animals so numbers become restricted. This leaves the snow leopard with little choice but to take domestic animals so herdsmen kill snow leopards in retribution.

Although all of the countries that have snow leopards have cat protection laws, the laws are not rigorously upheld and illegal poachers often find the weaknesses in local law enforcement.

Snow leopards generally live for up to 10 years in the wild.