Besides lax herding and guarding, other important conservation factors include habitat loss and fragmentation, and poaching of the natural prey base. As the number of wild prey declines, snow leopards turn to domestic stock for their survival. Prey densities are usually lowest in unprotected areas. They may then become habitual deprecators. Breeding females are especially vulnerable to herder retribution because of the high food demand from the dependent cubs.
Herders often take cubs from the maternal den.
Like their counterparts in the U.S., herders in the Himalayas tend to blame predators without adequately accounting for other mortality such as disease and accidents. Many herders have abandoned proven traditional shepherding practices. In addition to less vigilant guarding, their stock often forage in areas offering good stalking cover for snow leopards. With more children in school and thus not serving as shepherds, families are increasingly letting their stock roam freely during the daytime, or keeping them in poorly constructed livestock pens at night. Yet Central Asia's alpine pastures have long been used by resident and nomadic herders, so that eliminating livestock is not an option in most areas.