A walk last December through downtown Kathmandu´s Durbar Marg avenue was shocking to me, as someone concerned about endangered of Himalayan wildlife. The ubiquitous fur-selling shops all seemed to carry garments made out of spotted cats. Eager salesmen told me what they thought I wanted to hear: "jungle cat", "ocelot", "leopard", anything. They said they would help me smuggle the fur out of the country. A Kashmiri shopkeeper operating at Store Number 11 near the Yak and Yeti Hotel offered me a snow leopard coat for USD 3,000.
Compelled by a need to know more, I initiated a brief study of Kathmandu´s fur market. I visited 36 fur-selling shops with a female companion (in picture with face obscured) and together we posed as a couple interested in some illegal fur shopping. We found that 86 percent of the stores carried coals made from protected species: leopard-cat (Prionailurus bengalensis), common leopard (Panthera pardus), clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa), and snow leopard (Panthera uncia).
The fur coats we found represent the lives of many individual animals. Leopard-cats are diminutive creatures, so at least 36 cats must give up their beautiful skins to make one full length coat. Based on all the leopard-cat coats we counted, I estimate conservatively that over 700 of these animals were killed to stock the Kathmandu shops. Similarly, over 50 common leopards, about 28 clouded leopards, and 12 snow leopards were killed as fodder for Kathmandu´s fur trade. The numbers given here are indeed conservative because we missed some stores and did not go into all the large hotels, many of which have fur shops in their lobbies.
All the four species of cats whose furs are so abundantly available are protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES). Nepal became a member of CITES in 1975 and in doing so agreed to prohibit international trade in species protected by the treaty. The fur trade in Kathmandu is "international" because the stores cater almost exclusively to tourists. (At U$ 500 to U$ 3,200 per coat, these furs are far beyond the means of most Nepalis.)