Nepal’s ‘low-altitude’ snow leopard would face big hurdles in return to wild

As the gates to the vet clinic at the Central Zoo in Lalitpur opened, more than two dozen photojournalists thronged the facility and surrounded a metal cage aiming their DSLR cameras at a snow leopard inside.

“Please don’t come close to the animal,” the zoo’s vet, Radha Krishna Gharti, told approaching photojournalists. But in the gush of excitement to take exclusive photographs of the elusive cat, difficult to spot even in its prime habitats, there were few takers for the word of caution.