In Nepal, leopards and wolves don’t fight over who’s top dog. By eating different prey, the apex predators live in relative peace. In a new study published in the Public Library of Science, researchers examined three large carnivores that live in the same area: snow leopards (Panthera uncia), leopards (Panthera pardus) and Himalayan wolves (Canis lupus chanco). Researchers set up 26 camera traps in the Lapchi Valley in Nepal, a sacred pilgrimage site in the Himalayas known for its meditation hermitage. They also collected scat from the animals and used DNA analysis and microscopes to identify what the animals had been eating. The study found that while the species overlapped in space and time—they all largely hunt at night—they targeted different prey. Snow leopards ate mostly wild ungulates, while leopards targeted species associated with humans, like sheep, horses and dogs. Himalayan wolves were more of a wild card, eating both wild and domestic prey. “Understanding how apex predators coexist in resource-limited mountain ecosystems is central to both ecological theory and conservation practice,” wrote the authors.
