Stanford, USA – A new study reveals alarming genetic vulnerability among the world’s snow leopards, putting the elusive big cats at heightened risk of extinction.

Research led by Stanford University, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that snow leopards across 12 Asian countries—including Russia, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Tibet—have very low genetic diversity. The species’ estimated population is fewer than 8,000.

“Snow leopards live in these really untouched areas, unlike other big cat species, which have suffered from human impact already,” said Katie Solari, a Stanford research scientist. “They don’t have many individuals. They don’t have much genetic diversity. Snow leopards are just not well situated to deal with changes that are likely coming their way.”

The team analyzed 41 snow leopards, including 35 from the wild and six from zoos, greatly expanding prior genetic knowledge, which included only four fully sequenced individuals. Their findings show the population has remained small and stable for a long time, naturally purging harmful mutations over generations.

“This periodic purging allowed the snow leopard population to remain relatively healthy even at their small numbers,” said co-author Dmitri Petrov. However, unlike cheetahs, which faced population bottlenecks, snow leopards’ low diversity has not yet caused major health issues.

Experts warn that climate change now poses the greatest threat. “Humans don’t need to show up in their mountains to build or start agriculture. The climate changes, and it affects everyone and everything, even in such remote areas,” Petrov said.

The researchers are developing genetic tests from feces to study wild populations without capture, aiming to guide conservation strategies. Snow leopards are a keystone species, preying on mountain ungulates and small mammals, meaning their decline could destabilize entire ecosystems.

“If their habitat starts degrading, then snow leopards might go extinct fairly easily, simply because there’s just not much ecological space for them and the total population is so small,” Petrov added.

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