Oh I do wish that I could without reservations recommend Sy Montgomery’s 2009 Saving the Ghost of the Mountain: An Expedition Among Snow Leopards in Mongolia. An informative and short book packed with details and beautiful photographs on Mongolia, snow leopards, and the Snow Leopard Trust. Tom was in search of a snow leopard that a year earlier he had caught, tagged, and released back into the wild. These “ghosts” were extremely difficult to locate and study even if a radio signal was transmitting of a tagged snow leopard in front of you. At the time, it was guessed that 3,500 to 7,000 snow leopards lived in the wild and 600 in zoos.
His job was dangerous and grueling with little success (nine years lapsed before Tom saw a snow leopard again) and little pay while visiting freezing, broiling, and treacherous environments with no telephone, water, or electricity. Tom was the conservation director of the Seattle based Snow Leopard Trust.
The author accompanied Tom “Danger Man” McCarthy to the Altai Mountains of Mongolia to track and study the snow leopard. Furthermore, these cats were killed for their fur and bones and poisoned for preying on domestic sheep and goats. Unfortunately, their natural prey was quickly dwindling and their habitats were being encroached upon. Tough, powerful, and elusive, these loners survived in altitudes with scant oxygen and icy temperatures and blended in with the rocky and desolate terrains being rarely seen. Rare with a gorgeous spotted coat, weighing between 60 to 120 pounds, around 2½ feet in height, 6 - 7½ feet in length with tail, and roaming 11 to 365 square miles, the snow leopard lived in the snowy mountainous area of Central and South Asia.
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