An extended learning

The Snow Leopard
Snow leopards are beautiful big cats with soft, thick gray coats and white underbellies. They have black and brown spots and markings. The leopards are between four to five feet long and weigh 60 to 120 pounds, with males being about 30 percent larger than females. These cats have giant paws that act like snowshoes and tails nearly as long as their bodies that they use for blankets against the cold. Their coats are lighter in the winter as camouflage in the snow. Unlike other large cats, snow leopards can't roar. Their vocal tract lacks the thick pad of elastic tissue that enables other cats to roar
They live at high altitudes, approximately 5,900 to 18,000 feet in alpine meadows, mountain steppes and coniferous forests in Central Asia. Their diet varies across its range, blue sheep, or bharal (Pseudois nayaur), of the Himalayas and Tibet, and the Asiatic ibex (Capra ibex), a wild goat found throughout the major mountain ranges of central Asia are considered big prey. Snow leopards also eat smaller animals, especially in the summer months. Small preys include marmots, pikas, hares, other small rodents, and game birds like the Tibetan snowcock and chukor partridge.
Sadly, these cats are in great danger of extinction. It is thought that 4,500 – 7,500 remain in the wild with an additional 600 – 700 in zoos worldwide. Unfortunately these numbers continue to decline. A number of factors influence snow leopard populations.
Abiotic factors include water, temperature, air and weather. Water is scarce in high altitudes. There is about 16 inches of precipitation but only half of it is rain. Temperature can change drastically from but is mostly at -17.5 to -37 degrees Celsius due to the high altitude. The air is very cold and dry, also caused from the high altitude. Monsoons, floods, high winds, snowstorms and other types of precipitation can come without notice which makes the climate very dangerous.
As stated above, the leopards prey such as marmots and blue sheep. These are gradually disappearing due to global warming. Leopards do not have any predators as it is the top predator of the food chain. However, ever since humans were introduced, everything changed. They are now being hunted by humans for their fur, bones, skin and organs. The fur is used for clothes or decoration while the rest can be made into Asian medicine.