Another factor that is aiding in the decline of the snow leopards population is changes in
the environment. There as been an increase in the number of people moving into the
snow leopards territory with the purpose of agriculture, business and live stock farming
http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=31574. This then causes snow leopards to
retreat to higher grounds or to stay and compete with humans, killing their livestock and
in turn being killed in retaliation by the farmer. Global Warming is also an issue snow
leopards tend to reside above the tree line and below the permanent snow line because of
increased temperatures snow lines are gradually moving back forcing them to move
higher in the mountains where vegetation and their prey are scarce.
There are an estimated 3,500-7,000 snow leopards left in the wild and approximately
another 600-700 in the zoos around the world.
http://www.snowleopard.org/islt/facts/population.html
The snow leopards have an approximate density range from about 0.8 animals per 100km2 http://lynx.uio.no/catfolk/uncia-05.htm
The snow leopards range covers the immense region surrounding Central Asia’s deserts
and plateaus. It is estimated that their range throughout the mountainous system covers
approximately 2.3 million km². However the snow leopard has very fragmented
distribution throughout this stretch of domain and only 1.6 million km² is actually
occupied by habitat http://www.redlist.org/search/details.php?species=22732