Snow leopards no longer endangered for first time in 45 years

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Snow leopards have been taken off the endangered list and have been categorised as “vulnerable”.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the global standard for assessing extinction risk, announced the decision and warned that the animal still faces serious threats.

The change occurred after a three-year assessment by five experts and comes 45 years after the creature was initially listed as endangered.

The decline of the species may have slowed due to a series of conservation projects.

Dr Tom McCarthy, who runs the Snow Leopard Programme at big cat charity Panthera, was one of the experts and said the rate of decline of snow leopards had fallen.

"To be considered 'endangered,' there must be fewer than 2,500 mature snow leopards and they must be experiencing a high rate of decline," he told the BBC.

"Both are now considered extremely unlikely, which is the good news, but it does not mean that snow leopards are 'safe' or that now is a time to celebrate.

"The species still faces 'a high risk of extinction in the wild', and is likely still declining - just not at the rate previously thought."

The cats are rarely seen and live in craggy peaks in central Asia. They have been threatened by poachers who sell their fur, climate change and infrastructure developments.

The reclassification to “vulnerable” means there are fewer than 10,000 breeding snow leopards left and there has been a population decline of at least 10 per cent in the last three generations.