The rescued cub inside a room
According to details shared with the
press by Rehman Posh, KVO’s Chairman, the cub was trying to cross the
Khunjerav (misspelled as Khunjerab in official documents) River
following its mother but got stranded and returned to the river bank,
which is covered with snow and ice.
The patrolling team saw the female in
the area and crossed the Khunjerav River to rescue the cub, which had
gotten stranded, unable to follow its mother into the wild.
The cub can be seen gnawing at a piece of fresh meat provided by the local people
KVO officially informed Mr. Willayat
Noor, Conservator Wildlife and Parks Gilgit-Baltistan about the rescue
incident and he has promised to send a team of experts to Sost, 8 hours
away from Gilgit.
KVO officials and local people with the cub
KVO has arranged food and spared a room for the cub, leaving it under the watch of a Warden.
It is pertinent to note that this is legal trophy hunting
season in Gilgit-Baltistan and the community representatives are fully
involved in monitoring of wildlife in the community conservation area.
The population of Snow Leopard in the KVO Community Conservation area
has increased in few years which every year kill many livestock of poor
people even in the villages.
KVO was established in 1989 in the upper
Gojal valley by Avgarchicks after the inception of AKRSP in
Gilgit-Baltistan and after realizing the importance of wildlife of the
area. It is registered under the company act with the Government of Pakistan which works for the conservation of the wildlife and local community development.
This is third time KVO community has rescued Snow Leopard cub, One Snow
Leopard was released with help of WWF-Pakistan which was telecast on
the CNN in 1998. The other, its name is Leo is now in the Trans Zoo,
USA.
KVO has completed many projects in
community development with different national and multinational NGOs,
i.e. WWF, IUCN, UNDP, AKRSP, MACP and GoP.
Source: Pamir Times and BBC
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