Video by Prasenjeet Yadav prasen.yadav | It's #InternationalSnowLeopardDay. Though this scene is from a camera trap, every time I look at the video, the snow leopard appears to be staring right at me. Filmed a few years ago in India's Himachal Pradesh, the leopard ventured close to the camera lens—and it seems to be examining its reflection with curiosity. For me, that gaze is what keeps this video alive in my memory. Snow leopards are elusive, though sightings have become routine in small pockets within their distribution range. It's resulted in a perception that these big cats are doing reasonably well, but the reality is that less than 10 percent of their global habitat has ever been studied. We have scant information about their populations and their prey species compared to other big cats. Snow leopards face both traditional and new threats, including poaching and retaliatory killing as a consequence of livestock predation as well as habitat degradation and loss of natural prey ...