- Camera traps have captured tigers roaming at an elevation of 3,165 meters (10,384 feet) in eastern Nepal’s lower Himalayas — the highest they’ve ever been recorded in the country.
- Experts suggest a range of factors for this, including a growing tiger population that’s crowding some of the big cats out of the lowland plains and further uphill.
- Another set of camera trap images were captured in Dadeldhura district in western Nepal, which a previous study identified as a climate refugium, where temperatures remain relatively stable, allowing species to persist during regional and global climate changes.
- Other large mammals have also been recorded on camera trap here, including many that, like tigers, were previously thought to be confined to lower-elevation habitats.
“But I didn’t believe him,” he adds. Nepal’s tigers (Panthera tigris tigris) are found in the country’s southern flood plains, ranging up to the foothills of the Chure range. The temple in Dadeldhura is located in the Mahabharat range, or the lower Himalayas, further north and even higher in elevation than the Chure range. If the priest really had seen a tiger, then, it was two mountain ranges and more than 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) in elevation removed from its known habitat.
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