According to the Shanshui Conservation Center, there are only an estimated 4500 to 7300 snow leopards left in the world and in the last 15 years, their numbers have decreased by a fifth.

China is now home to more than half of the world’s snow leopard population. Their home range is the Tibetan plateau and particularly the Sanjiangyuan area, which houses the largest connected snow leopard territory in the world. Their habitat here covers more than 89,000 square kilometres, slightly larger than all of Austria. This makes Sanjiangyuan the best hope to protect these animals from extinction.

Growing up, Geng Ga had a vision what his life was going to be like.

“I wanted to be a tour guide”, he says, “And use my knowledge to introduce others to Tibetan culture.”

But life turned out quite differently for the Tibetan from Sichuan. He unexpectedly encountered the Shanshui Conservation Center, an NGO that works on protecting animals in the Qinghai plateau among other duties.

“They said they’re doing animal protection. Honestly, at the time I had no idea what this was. But when they said I would work in the Tibetan area, my heart skipped a beat. Being able to do protection work in my home, and work with wild animals, is a very meaningful job I think,” Geng said.

He was sent to live with the local Tibetan community in order to gain an understanding of their way of life and thinking. Being Tibetan himself, he imagined this would be a fairly straightforward affair but the reality was quite different.

“When I first moved to the Sanjiangyuan area, I was struggling with the environment and the food. Also, there was a huge language difference. I thought I could act as interpreter for the NGO, but once I arrived in Yushu, I discovered that Amdo Tibetan is not really used at all in this region. Then there is the high altitude, which I wasn’t used to. But coming here, everything is new and exciting. So my curiosity outweighed everything else.”

Four years later, Geng Ga has clearly managed to overcome the initial hurdles. He has trained the local volunteers in using and maintaining infrared cameras and analysing the footage.

Yet, there are aspects to the job that present a challenge.

It is physically demanding and the pay is not high, but more importantly Geng Ga’s parents are disappointed that he spends the whole year in the wilderness in faraway Qinghai and is rarely able to visit his home in Sichuan.

So why does he choose to stick with this line of work?

“When it comes to collecting the data we’ll drive for hundreds of kilometers

to the camera location and conduct the handover with the herders, not knowing what the cameras have captured during the last months. When you go through the pictures one by one on the computer, there are so many pleasant surprises. This is when I feel happiest,” he said.