After our two training days (for this group in pretty foul weather), we were off in four groups today. Two groups checked camera traps from last year, which recorded ibex, fox, snow cock and the snow rising until it covered the lens. Another group surveyed two cells and found an ibex skull and horns, probably a victim of poaching. The site was littered with scats, one looked like wolf or snow leopard, so we collected a sample for DNA analysis to find out. The fourth group found three more ibex skulls. Poaching seems as rife as ever here. All in all an excellent first day of surveying. Well done to the team.
We have successfully assembled and are currently making or camp. The team are in good spirits.We look forward to bringing you updates from this year’s Kyrgyzstan expeditions.
Greetings from Bishkek. Expedition base is now ready for our first group of participants. At an altitude of almost 3000 m, the weather at camp is much cooler at night, around 4 degree celcius and warm during the day, the air is clear and snow is thawing from the surrounding peaks. There has been some rain making for a more interesting approach by vehicles (especially the truck).
Emil, Johnny and myself (Darran)- expedition scientist and both leaders are back in hot and hazy Bishkek collecting the last of the supplies. There will be ample wildlife spotting opportunities from the vehicle as we a approach camp, on the drive out we had a pair of Hoopoe follow the vehicle!
We look forward to meeting the first group of expeditioners in Bishkek tomorrow morning and traveling to the remote Tien Shan mountains. The drive will take approximately 10 hours, a packed lunch will be provided. In the meantime, don’t forget to grab any last minute supplies today before meeting 8am sharp tomorrow morning.
Bishkek is hot, dry, sweaty, noisy and oh so Central Asia. On a clear day the views of the mountains are beautiful.
We’re shopping, meeting, talking with partners, doing paperwork, printing out datasheets, filling gas bottles, withdrawing cash, charging up and testing radios, sat phones and GPSs, and doing all the umpteen things that need to be done before an expedition can head out into the field. We have a few days of this still ahead of us until we can head into the mountains on Wednesday to set up base camp for you.
A couple of household points for the team:
There is a Globus supermarket a few minutes walk away from the Futuro assembly point hotel. It is open 24/7, takes cards and has lots of drinks and sweets and more. There will be plenty of food, tea, water and coffee at base, but no shops anywhere around. If you simply must have a can of lager in the evening or are addicted to Mars bars or similar, we recommend you stock up there before assembly (don’t be late tough!). Good luck with reading the labels 😉 Remember we are at base and away from shops for 12 nights.
I hope you have swatted up on the 2024 report, field guide and dossier. If you want to be ahead of the curve (the first two days of training will be tough, with lots of information thrown at you), then have a look at all the documents here, which I suggest you read at some stage or on your flight to come extra well prepared.
Welcome to the 2025 Tien Shan snow leopard expedition diary. I am Matthias Hammer, expedition leader for group 1 and the founder & executive director of Biosphere Expeditions. I am already in Bishkek, where it is hot and stifling (35 C yesterday). It will be different in the mountains – cooler and fresher.
The expedition scientist, Emil, and I have a week to prepare, go shopping, put things in place etc. before two more staff and expedition leaders – Jonny and Darran – arrive from the UK and Ireland respectively and we move out and set up base camp for you, before it all starts.
Matthias (left) and Emil
So this is just to let you know that things are proceeding as planned despite various crises around the world, and that we look forward to meeting you in due course.
At your end, please study your dossier as well as the 2024 report to make sure you come prepared. I hope you are getting excited and that your preparations are going well. I’ll be in touch again before we set up and once we’re back from setup.
The snow leopard – perhaps the most iconic flagship species of them all – is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because there are probably fewer than 10,000 adults left in the wild.
Living in the high mountains of eastern Afghanistan, the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau to southern Siberia, Mongolia and western China, they are threatened by poaching, habitat destruction and climate breakdown.
Helping in their conservation are organisations such as Biosphere Expeditions, who has worked in snow leopard conservation for over 20 years, making it one of the longest-running research projects on snow leopards ever conducted. Citizen science is key to this success story.
We thought you might be interested in the results of the DNA analysis of the samples you collected into the tubes.
Tubes 10, 12 (CT07), 13 and 14/15 (collected by group 3) are snow leopard.
All other tubes, i.e. all from group 1, as well as tubes 9 and 11 from group 3 are Mongolian wolf. Group 2 did not collect any tubes.
Thank you for your efforts in collecting these and the very useful results they yielded. More details and conclusions will be in the expedition report.
Our third and final Tien Shan group was full of enthusiasm and hard work. There was a real buzz around camp and everyone was motivated to get stuck in.
We have captured snow leopard on our camera traps a total of four times (total of 14 images captured) and sent back 13 scat samples to Germany to be DNA-tested whether they really are from the ghost cat. We have felt their presence and it is hard to imagine that they haven’t observed us from a distance.
We planned an overnight expedition with two of our 4x4s to the east side of the Jil Suu valley to survey a large swath of prime habitat, but we were stopped in our tracks at the first hurdle: A road that we drove just two weeks ago was now impassable due to heavy rain “redesigning” the numerous river crossings. We returned to basecamp and decided to turn our attention to the east side of the Burkhan valley instead.
Another expedition team spent two days hiking in the mountains with an overnight stay in the Archaly valley to the south of our basecamp. They were able to place camera traps at a promising 4000 m pass and we are excited to see the results next year.
We were invited to join the local shepherds at a type of mid-summer celebration where all families from the same area let their hair down for the day. They had set up yurts with mountains of food and a loudspeaker to dance to Kyrgyz techno music. We were greeted gleefully and invited to talk in front of the more than 100 people that had congregated in the Burkhan valley. The Grupa Bars addressed the crowd and talked about the work we are doing here followed by talks from the expedition leader, expedition scientist and citizen scientists. We expressed our gratitude to our neighbours for their welcoming nature during our stay in the valley and their constant assistance and co-operation.
On our second to last day, we ventured to a ridge line to place camera traps, where we had discovered evidence of snow leopard. On the steep hike up the grass slope we were fortunate to witness a large group of seven to eight ibex walking on the ridgeline far above us, their silhouettes unmistakable against the deep blue Tien Shan sky. As we approached the top of the ridge, we made an effort to limit our noise in case they were still around. Sure enought, there was a small plateau around 150 m below the ridge where there was a group of over 40 ibex resting, the largest group of ibex we have seen on this expedition. We were able to observe them for a few minutes before they were startled by something and fled across the rocky, precipitous hillside out of sight.
The 2024 has been extremely successful and our citizen scientists have collected a huge amount of data. We have surveyed over 130 cells amounting to a total area of 520 square kilometres (!), looking for signs of snow leopards and their prey and assessing biodivrsity. We have placed 17 camera traps in the mountains to capture photos until our return in 2025 and have sent 13 vials of potential snow leopard scat to Germany to be DNA tested. Thank you to everyone involved to make this possible: NABU and the Grupa Bars, our scientist Emil, our local helpers and friends in the study site, in Bishkek and around the world, and most of all our citizen scientists, whose input in labour and funding make this expedition possible in the first place. I take my hat off to you all for doing this. Thank you.
The last two camera traps still out in the field from 2023 are proving elusive. Perhaps they have gone “missing”. Never mind. This happens.
BUT we have an amazing snow leopard photo from another trap from just six days ago. I will share this next weekend when we return from the field to Bishkek with this final group.
Today everyone is heading out on an overnighter to increase our reach as usual.
A couple of days ago we joined a community gathering of over 100 shepherds and gave a talk to them about who we are, what we do here and why. This was a good and successful undertaking.
