Classification of Snow Leopard habitat in Mt. Everest National Park Sujhav Pun & Martin Gordon

Background Snow leopards disappeared in the 1960's but in the late 1980s anecdotal reports noted their return. Very elusive Altitudinal home range m Prefer low elevation, close to rivers, away from humans and less snowfall, prefer exposed rocky areas Need for identifying ideal habitat

Study Area Mt. Everest National Park (Sagarmatha) Elevation ranges from 2,810m to 8,848m at the summit of Everest sq miles in area WGS 84, UTM 45N

Methods Identify cover types o Unsupervised Classification o Supervised classification - identify all possible features based on image interpretation o Supervised classification - identify vegetation types based on ecological data Use ecological data to ID cover types

Continued Literature analysis needed to identify o Ideal leopard habitat o Prey species habitat

Raw Data

True color R/G/B = 3/2/1

Custom = R/G/B = 4/3/2

Unsupervised Classification

Supervised classification

Supervised classification - Forest Types

Conclusion Good for researchers and policy makers More data needed