May 25th 2017: I had the very big privilege of spending the whole day with this incredible man, Manoj Gautam from the Jane Goodall Institute…an animal welfare activist who is also focused on empowering communities by building models of sustainable community development….where the conservation of species is the key to ensuring livelihoods 🙏🏽

Today amongst other things we discussed how we can work together on river dolphins in Nepal in collaboration with the Centre for Molecular Dynamics. Virtually nothing is known on this population and I’m so excited about what we can discover working together and working with the communities around the Karnali River in south-western Nepal 🙏🏽🙏🏽

May 19th 2017: We visited the Himalayan Animal Rescue Trust in Pokhara on the way back to Kathmandu who very generously gave £1000 to the project.

They are an independently funded charity aimed at improving the quality of life for Pokhara’s animals, particularly its street dogs.

Their work is phenomenal and they’ve managed to neuter and vaccinate (against rabies) around 70% of the female dog population!!

What’s even more exciting is I’ve now linked them up with CMDN who have been studying canine distemper and the link between dogs and native wildlife. Such a beautiful way to end an amazing trip 🙏🏽

Please donate to this generous foundation…your money will go directly to helping the animals ❤️🙏🏽

http://www.hartnepal.org/

May 18th 2017: Last day in Mustang and what an incredible one up high in the mountains!! We stumbled across a couple of goat herders who we were able to interview….what was clear was that they wished the snow leopard was not around as they have so far taken 270 of their goats and they receive no compensation.

This is a huge cost to their livelihood and their lives are so tough. What if we could find a way for them to earn money through conservation?!!! Now there’s a thought! Dibesh and I are working on some ideas and I’m filled to the brim excited!

Unfortunately no snow leopard scat however, we found scat from a number of native ungulates Dibesh collected for his biodiversity spatial mapping, another potential pug mark and I managed to conduct an interview with Dibesh himself on the challenges of snow leopard conservation miestenapteekki.com.

I now have more than enough footage for a short documentary…..stay tuned…and I’m feeling sad to leave but incredibly blessed!!

This is just a short video I thought you might like to see – During my last days in Nepal, I set off walking up the mountainside alone, and a couple of minutes later found myself being followed by a herd of local goats!

Nat

Dr. Natalie Schmitt

14th May 2017: Thank you to everyone for your love and suggestions on how to get well….the drugs thankfully worked 🙏🏽

Today was an incredible day around Jomsom….we climbed a ridge with this view and found big cat pug marks from 2 animals!!!!

Unfortunately no scat but we interviewed one of the villagers (Niraj Thakali) and there are apparently 4 snow leopards in the area!

I learned a lot about the issues of snow leopard-human conflict from this man…that the farmers are not adequately compensated when their livestock is taken.

And with common leopards now moving up into snow leopard territory due to climate change he said that a device like what we’re developing will be very useful for knowing just what animals they’re dealing with.

Walking just a small distance also made me realise just how difficult it is to monitor snow leopards (it’s very very tough!) and the importance of using the local people wherever possible….creating schemes where they have the incentive to take control of conservation efforts….am so inspired!!!

Nat

Dr. Natalie Schmitt

May 13th 2017: Reached Jomsom after a 10 hr intense journey in 4wd, but sick. Cramps diarrhoea and fever. Will update with more info as soon as I can 🙂

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