Peter Matthiessen

So the question I would love for you to explain to the audience is why go through that for snow leopards?

Well, it was really important to me because I'd read Peter Matthiessen's book about George Schaller, and we knew George, luckily enough.

And w- in 1999 Long time ago, my editor sent an email out to a bunch of us with na- natural history photographers, "What would your dream assignment be?" And I thought, "Well, why not snow leopards? If I'm gonna stick with big cats, I need to make..." I never really thought of it like this, but you really need to make a name for yourself because I thought, "I wanna stick with big cats," you know? And if you do stories that maybe haven't been done before, like my first cat story, jaguars, you're never gonna get a no when you put your proposal in.

So that was really part of my thinking, 'cause we're freelancers, so it's important.

There are so many such questions that if I could find the answer to, you know, I would be absolutely thrilled.

Do you end up, though, with, for all the study you do, with a perhaps somewhat less romantic view of the snow leopard? Because y- you write about Peter Matthiessen's book about the snow leopard, The Snow Leopard, uh, listeners may be familiar with, but he very much gets into that kind of ghost of the Himalaya semi-mystical idea of the creature.

It could feel that way, but sometimes the more we know, the more we know how little we know.

[laughs]

But the time involved in that must have been enormous.

There's a fellow called Matthiessen, is that his name, who wrote a book on the snow leopard.

And apparently he never even saw one in two years studying them.

And yet you're going to accumulate enough data for a PhD.

How long were you at

it? So that's the thing.

Peter Matthiessen wrote one of the most influential books about snow leopards, but he was in the mountains for only two months.

I, on the other hand, have right now spent about 22 years.