A journey into Nepal’s Limi Valley is always profound. We at the Himalayan Wolves Project first visited the area more than a decade ago and were immediately struck by its high-altitude, wind-sculpted landscapes, and the extraordinary diversity of wildlife inhabiting them: Himalayan wolf (Canis lupus chanco), snow leopard (Panthera uncia), wild yak (Bos mutus), kiang (Equus kiang), Tibetan fox (Vulpes ferrilata), Tibetan gazelle (Procapra picticaudata), Tibetan argali (Ovis ammon hodgsoni), blue sheep (Pseudois nayaur), steppe polecat (Mustela eversmanii), Pallas’s cat (Otocolobus manul), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), Tibetan brown bear (Ursus arctos pruinosus), black-necked crane (Grus nigricollis), Himalayan marmot (Marmota himalayana), various species of pika (Ochotona spp.), and many more. During 12 years of research expeditions, the valley has revealed to us not only the intimate lives of its wildlife but also the shifting ways in which people use this land. During our most recent fieldwork in July 2025, however, we observed changes that raise serious concern. Large numbers of goats and sheep were being grazed in areas once dominated by yak herds, directly overlapping with the habitats of the valley’s key carnivores: Himalayan wolf, snow leopard, lynx and brown bear. Goats and sheep are highly vulnerable to predation, and so the potential for escalating conflict between humans and these carnivores is evident. A Himalayan marmot. Image courtesy of Christopher J. Fynn / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 & GFDL. Shifts in summer pastures Since our first journey, the high summer pastures of Limi beyond Pigung Lagna — Tibetan for…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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