Living with the Snow Leopards

News · NowHere Media · Ladakh

Meta Camera have been working with NowHere Media to capture footage in the Himalayas featuring Snow Leopards, their environments and local people. The project has been predominantly shot with the Meta Four camera.

‘Living with the Snow Leopards’ (working title) is a mixed reality documentary that explores the complex relationship between the human inhabitants of the Himalayas and the endangered snow leopards.

The high-altitude mountains of the Indian Himalayas in Ladakh harbour one of the most elusive big cats, the snow leopard. However, their existence is threatened by a multitude of factors, including retaliatory killing, climate change, habitat loss, and fragmentation. These factors have led to a decline in the snow leopards’ prey, such as blue sheep, ibex, and Tibetan snow cocks, and the predators resort to attacking livestock, which then triggers herders and farmers to hunt them, further harming the wildcat population. This cycle creates a human-animal conflict, setting the threatened apex species against the inhabitants of the mountain lands.

The mixed reality documentary aims to explore this complex relationship and potential solutions.