Snow Leopards (Explore My World)

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Darla has been Rodney’s companion and assistant for many years and this book tells in detail the hard work their team did, not only in the field with the wild cats but also the tireless fund raising to get money for snow leopard conservation projects at a time when few people in the west had even heard of these beautiful cats.

The book recounts the journey of Matthiessen and Schaller in 1973 to Shey Gompa in the inner Dolpo region of Nepal. I came to this book through Without Ever Reaching the Summit: A Journey which purports to follow in Matthiessen’s footsteps. He has been a Steering Committee member of the Snow Leopard Network since its inception in 2003 and is currently the elected Chairman of that 400 member organization, which represents nearly every biologist and conservationist now active in the snow leopard world. a wild, laughing yelp, quite unlike anything I have ever heard, which echoes eerily off the walls of the cold canyon. Some dual awards for hardcover and paperback books were conferred from 1980 to 1983, when both Fiction and Nonfiction were also subdivided in other ways.It was an arduous, sometimes dangerous, physical endeavour: exertion, blisters, blizzards, endless negotiations with sherpas, quaking cold. They also say that there is a police check post at Saldang, which makes it inadvisable for us to go there” (p. Or maybe, if I had gone “on the road” as Kerouac got a generation to do, one way or the other, I might have taken it with me then and actually read it.

The descriptions of birds and animals and plants so unfamiliar to my citified self had me running to Wikipedia quite often. A must have for all inquisitive children and a perfect way for parents and teachers to raise climate awareness with children without scaring or preaching.Schaller has a grant to study the mating habits of the blue bharal sheep (a rare, ancient breed as close to goat as sheep) and that is the primary purpose of the journal. It is rich with sensory detail – capturing the sights, tastes, smells, sounds and textures of the author’s journey, along with his observations and feelings of his experience. The journey is arduous, with its own particular dangers; at one point, a group of porters who did not take the appropriate precautions are afflicted with snow blindness, “a very disagreeable burning of the corneas which comes on with little warning and has no cure other than time: the sensation is that of sand thrown in the eyes” (p.

Matthiessen's training as a naturalist serves him well; he initially made the journey with biologist George Schaller, who wanted to chronicle the mating practices of a Himalayan species of blue sheep. It is almost as if we have our backpack along with him and biologist, George Schaller, as they climb in the remote Dolpo region of the Tibetan Plateau to observe the blue sheep and solve the evolutionary mystery of their origins. As I examined my feelings I realized that these other adventuresome reads were more geared to our need for instant gratification and a quick, thrilling read.

The author is currently collecting the necessary funds to cover printing costs via a campaign on Kickstarter. Schwartz has extensive experience in international conservation efforts through involvement in IUCN/Species Survival Commission’s Conservation Planning, Conservation Translocation, Tapir, Otter, and Wildlife Health Specialist Groups. In the early light, the rock shadows on the snow are sharp; in the tension between light and dark is the power of the universe.