24-06-2025
Can you spot the snow leopard ‘disappearing like a ghost'?
A guide with a photography tour company in India tracked a snow leopard to a place where it enjoyed the perfect hiding place to ambush approaching blue sheep. Can you spot it? The sheep couldn't.
Inger Vandyke of Wild Images Photo Tours knew from her years of work in the mountains of Ladakh that predators are mostly active around dusk. Since her group arrived at around 2 p.m., they decided to wait it out and see what happens, despite getting colder and colder.
When they saw some blue sheep walking up the valley, they wondered if the hidden snow leopard would react.
It did. It 'woke from its slumber' and slowly crept down a slope of loose stones and found a place to hide, and 'that's when I took the photo,' Vandyke told USA Today/For The Win Outdoors.
'Eventually the blue sheep came into his view and he bolted out of his hiding place to try and catch one, but he missed,' Vandyke told USA Today/For The Win Outdoors. 'Sadly, most snow leopard hunts end in failure. I managed to capture it all in stills and I was shaking after it finished. I hoped like crazy that I managed to get all the photos in focus and I did! From that event I became the first person in the world to photograph a wild snow leopard hunt at close range.'
Also on FTW Outdoors: 'Ghost elephant' seen for first time in years; is it a lone survivor?
The photo of the snow leopard in its hiding place is most rewarding, as it shows the built-in camouflage these animals enjoy.
'They are incredibly hard to spot in the mountains,' Vandyke told USA Today/For The Win Outdoors. 'I always remember my husband telling me that before we arrived in Ladakh. I looked at the red-colored mountains and thought to myself 'Well I'm looking for a grey cat in red mountains. How hard can it be?'
'I was completely wrong with that thought.'
'Even now when I look at this photo I wonder how many we might have walked past that we just couldn't see because of their camouflage,' Vandyke told USA Today/For The Win Outdoors. 'They can quite literally turn their back on you and disappear like ghosts into the mountains.'
