ON TOP OF THE WORLD

Solitary and secretive, the snow leopard is master of its mountain realm. Frédéric Larrey braved the high peaks to find it.

Snow leopards are perfectly equipped for life in the mountains and are superb hunters, capable of taking prey three times their weight. Yet these cats remain thinly spread across their 12 range countries. Just 3,500-7,000 are thought to survive, their future threatened by loss of habitat and prey, poaching and climate change. Between 2016 and 2019, Frédéric embarked on eight expeditions to the far reaches of the Tibetan Plateau on a quest to photograph this enigmatic feline – and the surprising diversity of other creatures that carve out an existence in this remote, wind-battered land.

Fox forays

The Tibetan fox is widespread in the steppe and semi-desert regions of the Tibetan Plateau, its dense coat offering protecting from the bitter cold. It lives in burrows and is an obligate predator of plateau (or black-lipped) pikas: without them, the fox would not survive.

Stretching out

Frédéric photographed this male (left) in October 2018. The cat’s face was heavily scarred, probably after a battle to overcome a young yak. He was unusually confiding, even coming to within 12m of the photographer to drink. “For three days, he fed, slept, stretched and rolled without paying me the slightest attention,” recalls Frédéric. “It was one of the most powerful encounters I’ve had in my life as a naturalist.”

Mountain high