Erster Internationaler Tag des Schneeleopardens Ereignis

Am 23. Oktober 2014 wird erstmals der Internationale Tag des Schneeleoparden zu Ehren der stark gefährdeten Großkatze gefeiert. Experten schätzen, dass es weltweit nur noch zwischen 4,500 and 7,500 Schneeleoparden in Freiheit gibt. Vor genau einem Jahr fand zu ihrer Rettung das erste Globale Forum zum Schutz der Schneeleoparden in Kirgistans Hauptstadt Bischkek statt, auf dem sich Vertreter aller zwölf Verbreitungsstaaten auf gemeinsame Schutzmaßnahmen einigten.

On 23 October 2014 the International Snow Leopard Day was celebrated for the very first time. Snow leopards are among the most enigmatic of wild cats. With between 4,500 and 7,500 animals remaining in the wild today, they are also among the most threatened. Their long-term survival is far from assured, and despite being protected on Appendix I of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) as well as in the Red Data Books in each of the twelve countries in which they occur, the species has been extirpated from some parts of its historic range. In 2013 on the initiative of the Kyrgyz government, representatives of the twelve Central Asian Snow Leopard Range States came together in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan to endorse the Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection Program (GSLEP) to conserve snow leopards and the high-mountain ecosystems they live in. The Forum also called upon Range States to declare the year 2015 as the International Year of the Snow Leopard, and October 23 as an annually celebrated Snow Leopard Day.