Charudutt Mishra
Scientist, High Altitudes
Ph.D. Ecology and Resource Conservation, Wageningen University
M.Sc. Wildlife Sciences, Wildlife Institute of India
Charudutt Mishra is the Science and Conservation Director of the Snow Leopard Trust, responsible for guiding research and conservation programmes in snow leopard range countries of Asia. He also serves as the Executive Director of the Snow Leopard Network, a worldwide organization of leading snow leopard experts and over 500 member individuals and institutions. Charu is a Founder Trustee of the Nature Conservation Foundation. He serves on the editorial boards of the journals Animal Conservation and Oryx, on the winner selection panel of the Whitley Awards, and is a member of the IUCN’s Cat Specialist Group. Charu has a Ph.D. in Ecology and Natural Resource Conservation from the Resource Ecology Group, Wageningen University (The Netherlands), MSc degree in Wildlife Sciences from the Wildlife Institute of India, and BSc. in Zoology from the University of Delhi (India).
Email: charu@ncfxb35-india.org
Projects
From science to policy
Project Snow Leopard: towards a national conservation policy
Completed
Kitchen Stories
Understanding how Nicobar communities share resources in the wake of the tsunami
Living and learning with snow leopards
Conservation education in the Himalaya
People, livestock and snow leopards
Unique livestock insurance schemes betters prospects for herders and carnivores
Plants, herbivores and communities
Rangeland dynamics in the Trans-Himalaya

Completed
Response of red fox to village expansion
How does red fox respond to increasing village size in the Trans-Himalaya?
Shared pastures
How mountain ungulates of the trans-Himalaya live together

Snow leopard and prey distribution
Factors affecting snow leopard & wild-prey at multiple scales
Snow leopard - prey dynamics
Understanding impact of wild prey availability on snow leopard killing livestock
Wild carnivores and people
Understanding human response towards snow leopards and wolves
Publications
- Journal ArticleIn pressSerow Nemorhaedus sumatraensisIn: A. J. T. Johnsingh and N. Manjrekar (eds.) Mammals of South Asia: ecology, behaviour and conservation. Permanent Black, Delhi.
- Journal ArticleIn pressGoral Nemorhaedus goralIn: A. J. T. Johnsingh and N. Manjrekar (eds.) Mammals of South Asia: ecology, behaviour and conservation. Permanent Black, Delhi.
- Book ChapterIn pressConflicts over snow leopard conservation and livestock productionConservation Conflicts, Redpath S, Young J, Gutierrez R, Wood K (eds.), Cambridge University Press.
- Report2017Valuation of Ecosystem Services in Snow Leopard Landscapes of AsiaMurali, R., Lkhagvajav, P., Saeed, U., Kizi, V.A., Zhumbai-Uulu, K., Nawaz, M.A., Bhatnagar, Y.V., Sharma, K., Mishra, C. 2017. Valuation of ecosystem services in snow leopard landscapes of Asia. Snow Leopard Trust, Nature Conservation Foundation, Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation, Snow Leopard Foundation Kyrgyzstan, and Snow Leopard Foundation Pakistan. Report Submitted to the Global Environment Facility (GEF) funded United Nations Development Program (UNDP) project on Transboundary Cooperation for Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Conservation.Download
PDF, 15.2 MB
- Journal Article2017The value of ecosystem services in the high altitude Spiti Valley, Indian Trans-Himalayahttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2017.10.018Download
PDF, 645 KB
The high mountain ranges of South and Central Asia are increasingly being exposed to large-scale development projects. These areas are home to traditional pastoralist communities and internationally important biodiversity including the endangered snow leopard Panthera uncia. Development projects rely on economic cost-benefit analysis, but the ecosystem services in the high Himalayas are poorly understood and are rarely accounted for. As a first step to fill this gap, we identified the main ecosystem services used by local people in the Trans-Himalayan Spiti Valley (7591 km2), a region important for conservation of snow leopards and high mountain biodiversity, and undertook an economic valuation. Stakeholders identified a range of services, though these were dominated by provisioning services identified by 90% of respondents. Only 5.4% of the respondents recognised regulatory services and 4.8% recognised cultural services. The mean economic value of provisioning services was estimated at US$ 3622 ± 149 HH−1 yr−1, which was 3.8 times higher than the average annual household income. Our results underscore the need to account for ecosystem services in the cost-benefit analyses of large-scale development projects in addition to assessments of their environmental and social impact.
- Book Chapter2017Birds in Relation to Farming and Livestock Grazing in the Indian Trans-HimalayasIn Bird Migration across the Himalayas: Wetland Functioning amidst Mountains and GlaciersDownload
PDF, 194 KB
- Dataset2017Data from: Assessing changes in distribution of the endangered snow leopard Panthera uncia and its wild prey over 2 decades in the Indian Himalaya through interview-based occupancy surveys.DOI: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.hp4b3
The data set has occupancy values and local extinction probability values for 88 grids/sites of 15km X 15km each, for snow leopard, blue sheep, Asiatic ibex and wild prey (blue sheep and ibex combined), across an area of 14,616 sq.km in the Himalaya and Trans-Himalaya mountains of Himachal Pradesh, India.
- Journal Article2017Assessing changes in distribution of the Endangered snow leopard Panthera uncia and its wild prey over 2 decades in the Indian Himalaya through interviewbased occupancy surveysdoi:10.1017/S0030605317001107Download
PDF, 585 KB
Understanding species distributions, patterns of change and threats can form the basis for assessing the conservation status of elusive species that are difficult to survey. The snow leopard Panthera uncia is the top predator of the Central and South Asian mountains. Knowledge of the distribution and status of this elusive felid and its wild prey is limited. Using recall-based key-informant interviews we estimated site use by snow leopards and their primary wild prey, blue sheep Pseudois nayaur and Asiatic ibex Capra sibirica, across two time periods (past: –; recent: –) in the state of Himachal Pradesh, India. We also conducted a threat assessment for the recent period. Probability of site use was similar across the two time periods for snow leopards, blue sheep and ibex, whereas for wild prey (blue sheep and ibex combined) overall there was an % contraction. Although our surveys were conducted in areas within the presumed distribution range of the snow leopard, we found snow leopards were using only % of the area (, km). Blue sheep and ibex had distinct distribution ranges. Snow leopards and their wild prey were not restricted to protected areas, which encompassed only % of their distribution within the study area. Migratory livestock grazing was pervasive across ibex distribution range and was the most widespread and serious conservation threat. Depredation by free-ranging dogs, and illegal hunting and wildlife trade were the other severe threats. Our results underscore the importance of community-based, landscape- scale conservation approaches and caution against reliance on geophysical and opinion-based distribution maps that have been used to estimate national and global snow leopard ranges.
- Journal Article2017Impact of wild prey availability on livestock predation by snow leopards.Royal Society Open Science, 4(6), 170026.Download
PDF, 566 KB
An increasing proportion of the world's poor is rearing livestock today, and the global livestock population is growing. Livestock predation by large carnivores and their retaliatory killing is becoming an economic and conservation concern. A common recommendation for carnivore conservation and for reducing predation on livestock is to increase wild prey populations based on the assumption that the carnivores will consume this alternative food. Livestock predation, however, could either reduce or intensify with increases in wild prey depending on prey choice and trends in carnivore abundance. We show that the extent of livestock predation by the endangered snow leopard Panthera uncia intensifies with increases in the density of wild ungulate prey, and subsequently stabilizes. We found that snow leopard density, estimated at seven sites, was a positive linear function of the density of wild ungulates—the preferred prey—and showed no discernible relationship with livestock density. We also found that modelled livestock predation increased with livestock density. Our results suggest that snow leopard conservation would benefit from an increase in wild ungulates, but that would intensify the problem of livestock predation for pastoralists. The potential benefits of increased wild prey abundance in reducing livestock predation can be overwhelmed by a resultant increase in snow leopard populations. Snow leopard conservation efforts aimed at facilitating increases in wild prey must be accompanied by greater assistance for better livestock protection and offsetting the economic damage caused by carnivores.
- Dataset2017Data from: Impact of wild prey availability on livestock predation by snow leopardsData Dryad: doi:10.5061/dryad.8p689