2.3 Snow leopard scat collection
From early April to mid-May (42 days) in 2012, 83 putative snow leopard
scat samples were collected within 27 grids (432 km2)
along the 140 transects (290 km). At least two transects each 1- 1.5 km
apart within each sampling grid was used following the technique used by
Thapa, 2007 adopted from Jackson & Hunter (1996). The length of
transects was dependent on the terrain and human accessibility. To
minimize collection of erroneous samples, scats were collected at snow
leopard scrape sites and further discriminated by size and shape. A
portion (~1 CM2; Janecka et al., 2011)
of the collected scat samples were stored in 15 ml vials with silica
desiccant ( Janecka et al., 2008), labeled (with grid number,
transect number, date, location, sample ID, GPS location etc.) and kept
at room temperature prior to DNA analyses. Remaining portions of each
sample were sun dried and put into paper envelopes for diet analysis.