Talk:Snow Leopard

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Snow Leopard is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates, please check the archive.
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[edit] Planet Earth

  • Someone should add about BBC's Planet Earth filming groundbreaking footage of the snow leopard in its natural environment.
  • Should there be some mention of Peter Matthiessen's novel The Snow Leopard here? Davidreid 09:18, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
  • How are the snow leopards being sucked on? Theres not enough snow leopords to dam suck on!!!!

. There shold also be more pictures of snowleopards in here so that people can get an idea on how they look. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 204.69.112.254 (talk • contribs) .

  • There are serious mistakes regarding the US military activities and their impact on the snow leopard population. First, the US invaded Afghanistan, no Afghanistan and Pakistan. Second, almost all US bombing took part in the southern half of the country--where there are no snow leopards. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.198.223.89 (talk • contribs) .
  • The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is believed to have a much bigger and negative impact in the country's population of snow leopards, since it triggered a total war in the whole country, increased the number of weapons in the rural areas, and had some of its biggest battlefronts in areas like Panjshir and Andarab Valleys, and Faizabad province--all of them, part of the snow leopard range. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.198.223.89 (talk • contribs) .
  • I think it would be a good idea to put in some information on how conservation organisations go about protecting the animal, the main one being trying to make the value of the leopard alive, more valuable to the locals than dead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.200.93.107 (talk) 19:41, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Start class rating

I've palced it here as I didn't want to create the extra page. Anyway, I've rated the article start class because it is too short to be anything else, but too long to be a stub. It has a fair amount of pictures & is fairly well written & accurate. It also has enough references to become even a B class if it had more writing. So, things to do: Basically expand the article & give it a rewrite once you've done that. Spawn Man 03:59, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Factual Errors

Under the Description heading is written: Weighing up to 47 kilograms (310lbs), the snow leopard can be...

This is inaccurate, as 47 kilograms can not in any way be manipulated to equal 310 pounds. Using my own common sense, the 310 pounds figure seems more likely, but I would just like to further clarify which weight is the correct one.

Possible that the author meant 147 kilograms (324 pounds)?

Snow leopard fur doesn't turn white in winter (!). This is not mountain hare! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.206.142.8 (talk) 13:05, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Revised Article

I've revised and copy edited the article. I noticed that "snow leopard" was capitalized throughout the article. I've changed that to the convention used in Tiger, Lion, Leopard, and Cheetah: i.e. the first instance is capitalized, but not thereafter. I added a new section on "Habitat, Population, and Home Range" and created a table on habitat areas and estimated populations. I removed some of the excessive footnoting in the lead. One footnote for a topic is usually enough, since readers quickly read through the lead in order to get to the main article (or not). I would request that if you want to add more scientific articles about the Panthera/Uncia debate, please add them to the "See also" section. Also, I've moved the BBC Planet Earth documentary sentence to "External Links". I also took out the reference to September 11—it seemed dubious and unsourced. Finally, I've added a "citation needed" tag to the story about the numbers dropping to 1,000 in the 1960s. This too is very unlikely, given that many habitat areas are almost impossible to reach. If the sentence is not sourced soon, it will be removed. I added a list of protected areas (mostly national parks in Pakistan, India, and Nepal) for the snow leopard. I've also added a number of images and a story about the GPS tagging in Chitral National Park, Pakistan. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:29, 27 November 2006 (UTC) Reverted vandalism. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Future Featured Article Consideration

I would like to request that the next time someone decides to nominate the article for Featured Article consideration, they discuss it first on the talk page. Having worked quite a bit on the article myself, I was surprised to find that it was a feature article contender (when it is nowhere near that level of completion). I know it was done in good faith, but it would be a good idea to discuss the issue here first. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:29, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Apparent contradiction

There is a significant apparent contradiction in the article, which must represent a factual error or, at best, an ambiguity. Either way, it needs to be fixed/clarified. The article states that "Despite its name, the snow leopard is not closely related to the leopard, and is thought to be more closely related to the cheetah." However, the article also states that "most recent molecular studies place the species firmly within the genus Panthera", and the leopard is a member of that genus, whereas the cheetah is not. The Felidae article also states that the snow leopard is classified under the same subfamily as leopards (Pantherinae), which is supported by this article's categorization, whereas cheetahs are in a completely different subfamily (Felinae); that's a pretty huge gap between snow leopards and cheetahs, and a pretty small one between snow leopards and leopards. How did this disconnect arise? Are scientists divided on this issue, or is one of the reports out-of-date, or what?

Additionally, if "most recent molecular studies place the species firmly within the genus Panthera", I question why the Uncia genus is still being supported here, since the implication is that it's simply an out-of-date classification that the molecular evidence has overturned. If this is not the case, then the sentence seems to be misleading: it should be revised to say that some recent molecular studies have implied this, or that molecular studies have placed the species within the subfamily Pantherinae, but not necessarily within the genus Panthera (as implied by Felidae). I don't know what the intended statement is, so I don't know how to correct any of these errors; and readers will be similarly confused. -Silence 21:43, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your post. Your point is well taken. I quickly read through the Science article. The evidence does seem to be strong for inclusion in the Panthera lineage, but (as yet) I'm not sure if it is 100%. I will read through that paper in more detail later and some of the other papers as well. In the meantime, I'll let your "contradiction" tag stand (as it will be a spur for me to read the papers!). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:35, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Cool, thanks for the responsiveness. I don't think it's really our job to evaluate the evidence ourselves; that would be original research. Rather, we should, ideally, look over all recent publications on the issue and see where they weigh in. If, for example, 40% of sources used Panthera five years ago, but 80% use it now, that would be more than enough grounds to justify a move. ("100%", obviously, is unnecessary.) An alternative is to just try to find an authoritative source on the subject, but the problem is that if the genetic research is recent, it may not be a factor in such a source's decision unless the authority's evaluation is similarly recent. Ultimately, whether we go with Panthera or Uncia for the genus is less important than whether we consistently and coherently report on the dispute. My problem isn't so much that we're weighing in on the wrong side of a disagreement, as that we don't explain to our readers what the disagreement is in an understandable way. And an aspect of this confusing inconsistency is the issue of whether snow leopards are more closely related to cheetahs than to leopards (which I'd find surprising even if snow leopards weren't in genus Panthera, since presumably they have to at least be very close to being pantherine if there's such a disagreement over the applicability of that genus here). -Silence 22:55, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
As far as i know (from several papers) it is not clear if the snow leopard is at the base of the Panthera-group or even a sister-species of the leopard. But that dosent matter in this case. The snow leopard is definitely not very closely related to the cheetah. Molecular studies show that the cheetah is more closely related to the puma.--Altaileopard 10:07, 14 May 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Rarity.

I dont believe the article covers how rare this animal is. Nor does it tell on how elusive it is. Planet Earth has the only film (as far as i know) of a Snow Leopard's hunt.

[edit] Recent Changes

I noticed that a number of changes were made recently to the article. In particular, the name "snow leopard" has been capitalized throughout without any discussion on the talk page. None of the tertiary sources, like Britannica or Encarta capitalize "snow leopard;" none of the papers in the reference section capitalize (including a number in Science and other well-respected journals), and the IUCN doesn't capitalize. WikiProjectMammals doesn't take a position on capitalization; however, it does say: "In the absence of consensus: Respect the original or primary authors; do not up and change something without notification, as you may be reverted." I do understand the Wikipedia exhorts people to be bold, but a change like this should have been discussed on the talk page first. I am therefore rolling back the page to the version of 21st May before the changes were made. Please discuss here why you want to capitalize or make any other changes to the current version. For example, I don't see why the section on conservation was so drastically whittled down without any explanation and why some valuable references—the only references easily available on the web about conservation work in the snow leopard's habitat regions—were removed. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:51, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm the one who added the capitalization, as I have been slowly making all mammal articles conform. The logic to the capitalization is at WP:BIRD. - UtherSRG (talk) 11:08, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Furthermore, I'm not going to announce on each page that I touch, what I'm going to do beforehand, when I've been doing this for quite sometime. Sometimes it garners some discussion. Mostly, it goes on without anyone batting an eyelash. - UtherSRG (talk) 11:18, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I understand this logic for Aves, where there is a precedent for it in the reliable sources, but the precedent for the snow leopard is definitively against capitalization, as I have indicated above. Here again is the relevant section from WikiProject Mammals:Capitalization:
“ The issue of the capitalization of the common names of mammal species is unresolved on Wikipedia and our pages are inconsistent. A large majority of reliable sources do not capitalize and thus there is a strong descriptive argument against doing so. Capitalization will often not "feel" right for editors for this reason. Conversely, because species names are proper nouns there is also a strong argument in favour of capitalization. Upper case usage is well-established with Aves species, for example. There are actually three possibilities in capitalizing:
  1. Never capitalize.
  2. Always capitalize.
  3. Capitalize when the species itself is referred to, as this is proper noun usage, but not where the phraseology indicates a common noun. Thus: "The Tiger is a carnivore" but "three tigers were observed in the conservation area."

The third is most correct orthographically, but it is also the most difficult to maintain. In the absence of consensus:

  • Respect the original or primary authors; do not up and change something without notification, as you may be reverted.
  • The form chosen should be used consistently across an article.
 ”
I won't revert right now, but please discuss why the precedent for birds should be applied to the snow leopard. As far as I remember (and I will double check today), I have never seen the snow leopard capitalized in the scientific literature.
Also, you didn't explain why you removed the conservation section. Thanks and regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:08, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm not going to have this discussion over and over and over again. Nearly every time I do, the decision goes for capitalization. The only time it didn't (Cougar), the strongest supporter of noncapitalization eventually decided on his own that capitalization was better and went ahead and capitalized anyway. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:56, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, you will have to have that discussion here pending a firm Wikipedia convention for capitalization of mammal names. I just read the cougar discussion, which is superficial at best. The main point is that Wikipedia goes by reliable secondary sources. During the course of the day, I will produce many such sources, none of which capitalize the name "snow leopard." You simply can't extrapolate a WP convention for Birds (which itself is not without problems) to mammals. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:06, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

In the standard book for mammals (walkers mammals of the world) and in other proper literature it´s always the "snow leopard"!!!!!! There is really no need for further discussion.--Altaileopard 17:48, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I have to mention that I didn´t read the comments above up to now. By checking an english book about birds I saw, that they are really all capitalized! Mammals are usually small. Actually I don´t care to much about that, but what is about frogs or insekts? Hmmm.... that is the first time, that I like the general capitalization of substanives in my german language:-). But anyway... I would prefer snow leopard, according to good literature.--Altaileopard 18:03, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, it is only in the Ornithology literature that they capitalize the names of birds. They don't do it in "Wildlife Studies," "Biology," "Conservation Biology," "Ecology" etc. (all the subfields of the Biological Sciences) that have articles on birds. I am collecting below a number of secondary sources on the "snow leopard." In the 50 or so that I have examined in the last 15 minutes, not a single one capitalizes the snow leopard.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:35, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalization Convention in Secondary Sources for Snow Leopard

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:04, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


So, given all of these sources and a substantial argument, the snow leopard still remains the Snow Leopard. Why, exactly, is this? 142.167.96.12 04:54, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Because one single admin, UtherSRG, keeps reverting anyone else who fixes it. — Satori Son 01:55, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Whoops - see my explanation below. Looks like I should have left things be. — Satori Son 02:18, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Twycross Zoo

I think there should be something on Twycross zoo's project that will feature a new enclosure for snow leopards, I mean seeing them is a zoo is very rare, the enclosure it wll have 1 way glass where people can see them but they cant see outside, and the whole enclosure will be very accurate in modeling the animals natural habitait.

Construction is due to start in summer 2008 and is expected to take 18 months. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.159.87.179 (talk) 17:48, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

That information, if you can cite a verifiable and reliable source, would be appropriate on the zoo's article, not on this article. - UtherSRG (talk) 19:00, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Some of that information is already on the zoo's page, so thank you.

[edit] Snow Leopards

Under the description it states "In winter, it comes down into the forests at an altitude of about 2000m" one of the reasons for this is that the Leopards try to avoid the snow which is found at higher altitudes, they migrate to lower regions as stated, the article doesn't say why though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.200.93.107 (talk) 19:34, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Move

Shouldn't this article be moved to Snow leopard? AecisBrievenbus 21:55, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I fixed it, but UtherSRG reverted me. Looking through the history, I now see that everytime someone else has fixed it previously, UtherSRG reverted them, too. I have no idea what they could possibly be thinking. — Satori Son 01:53, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Found this tidbit over at WP:CAPS#Organisms: "The capitalization on the common names of species has been hotly debated in the past and has remained unresolved. As a matter of truce both capitalized and non-capitalized (except for proper names) are acceptable, but a redirect should be created from the alternative form." Frankly, I'm shocked that our naming conventions for animals do not yet have consensus this far into the project, but obviously I should not have made the move I did. Truce it is. — Satori Son 02:16, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Part of the reason we don't have an organism-wide policy is that they've agreed on WP:BIRDS to capitalize bird names like "Common Starling" throughout the article to distinguish from confusing terms like "common starling". It'd be nice to have consistency, but it's rather silly to go around talking about Lions (as if we're in Oz and they talk) when there's no risk of confusion with lions. — Laura Scudder ☎ 04:54, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
This seems highly unsatisfactory: we have the common name capitalised in the article title and the bold title, and thereafter it's not capitalised in the article text. Some sort of consistency would be nice. Personally, I wouldn't use running capitals for this name in text, so it seems fairly clear which should be used for the bold title and article title, but evidently this is not a universal view. Since the biology WPJ declines to have a general rule, perhaps we should urge some sort of consideration to be given at the "mammals" or indeed "cat" WPJ level. Alai (talk) 04:01, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
The logic behind WP:BIRD's usage is sound. There are plenty of mammals that have the <adjective><noun> naming pattern of the majority of birds. Capitalizing the common name make it easy to distinguish the species (Red Squirrel) from a described individual (red squirrel). - UtherSRG (talk) 05:24, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Then argue for that as an explicit convention, don't assume that the WP:BIRD case is precedent for establishing or maintaining such a state. Especially as I say where it doens't conform to normal usage, or indeed the article's own usage. Alai (talk) 04:58, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Check the edit history of the article and talk page, and you'll see I've done just that. - UtherSRG (talk) 11:07, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] reproduction

ive looked at othr animals and they all talk about reproduction. how many eggs,cubs u know stuff like that? why not here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.108.236.151 (talk) 05:32, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] endangered

i kno this animal is classified as endangered how come it doesn't tell why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.108.236.151 (talk) 01:06, 26 February 2008 (UTC)