Snow leopard was spotted at height of about 4,000 metres in Lippa-Asra wildlife sanctuary in Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh.

• Snow leopard (Panthera uncial) is large cat native to mountain ranges of Central and South Asia- including Himalayas, and Russia’s remote Altai mountains.
• In India, it is found in states of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh.
• In September 2017, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) had downgraded conservation status of snow leopard to “vulnerable” from “endangered”.
• It is National Heritage Animal of Pakistan and Afghanistan.