A Legacy for Snow Leopards

Falling for Snow Leopards

Eight years ago, Sue Heim began training as an interpretive volunteer at the San Diego Zoo. Snow leopards and Amur leopards were the first big cats she learned about. Young snow leopards caught her attention immediately. She remembers them as “the floofiest, funniest, most uncoordinated and gorgeous little cats you have ever seen.” The cubs she watched at Woodland Park Zoo were nicknamed the snowballs. “I still think they are goofballs,” she says.

As Sue watched the cats and learned more about them, she came to understand the animal behind those playful cubs. The smallest and most rugged of big cats, snow leopards survive in some of the harshest mountain environments in the world. They are also keystone predators whose presence helps keep those ecosystems healthy. “Every year I became more enamored of the animals that I talked about,” she says. “Every year I became more determined to make a difference.”

Her zoo training introduced her to Snow Leopard Trust. Volunteers were taught about organizations that visitors could donate to if they wanted to help protect the animals they had seen.

Sue began with small donations and later made larger ones. She also joined fundraising walks and runs, carrying a Snow Leopard Trust banner that she sometimes tucked into her volunteer bag for a photograph at the zoo.

For Sue, caring about snow leopards meant taking responsibility for helping protect them. “I feel as if I am making a very small difference in a very big world,” she says. “If I do not do it, who is going to do it?” Her phrase for that responsibility is simple. “I have to walk the talk. I cannot talk about it and then not do it.”

By including Snow Leopard Trust in her estate, she found her own way to support the research, people, and conservation work happening in snow leopard habitat.

Finding Another Way to Help

Sue never expected animals to become the focus of her life. She has a degree in landscape architecture and spent most of her career in computer security, working in audit and compliance. Her years at the zoo changed her plans. She began looking for ways to work with animals beyond the zoo and considered joining snow leopard fieldwork in Mongolia.

Then she learned what nights in the research tents could be like. Once the fires ran out of fuel, there was no heat until morning. Sue decided that living and working in snow leopard country was not a path she could follow. “I still do not like the cold,” she says.

She went to Africa to work with cheetah conservation instead. She has worked with animals in Africa, and she says much of the past five years has led her toward the life she is building now. Africa “stole my heart,” she wrote, and Kenya’s approach to conservation matches her own. Now retired from computer security, Sue is uprooting her life and plans to move to Kenya, where she hopes to work with cats and other wildlife.

Making Snow Leopards Part of Her Legacy

As her conservation work drew her toward Africa, her connection to snow leopards continued to deepen. She still wanted to protect them in their habitat, but knew she could not move to Mongolia or Ladakh to do that work herself. Over the years, she continued supporting Snow Leopard Trust and eventually included the organization in her estate. The gift became another way to act on her love for the cats and her commitment to protect them. It would support the people doing the work she could not do herself.

“Sometimes you cannot always put your boots on the ground to help, but a legacy gift is the next best thing,” she says.

When asked why she made the gift, Sue said, “I cannot imagine the world without snow leopards.” She believes that working in partnership with Snow Leopard Trust can help move the needle for snow leopards by providing the scientific information, equipment, people, and other resources the work requires. Her decision also reflects the respect and trust she has developed for Snow Leopard Trust and its research.

Sue is not a scientist, but she understands the importance of scientific research to conservation. That understanding is one reason she did not hesitate to include the organization in her estate. Research helps conservation teams understand snow leopards, their prey, the land they share with people, and the pressures affecting them all. It also helps guide practical decisions about how people and snow leopards can coexist.

For Sue, protecting snow leopards also means helping people and wildlife share the same landscape. Snow leopards prefer wild prey such as ibex and blue sheep. Where people, livestock, and snow leopards share the same habitat, a cat may take a sheep or goat, and that loss matters to a herder. Sue believes the answer is to protect herds and make coexistence possible, not to kill the snow leopard.

What She Hopes Her Gift Will Protect

With legacy gifts like hers, Sue hopes snow leopard numbers will increase and that more people will understand how vulnerable the cats are, including the impact of climate change on their survival. She also worries that mining and ecotourism can do more harm than good if not managed responsibly. Visitors may travel to snow leopard country and never see a cat, but they can still respect the people, wildlife, and land. “Do not leave anything but your footprints behind,” she says, “and leave with a heart filled with joy.”

Sue still intends to see a snow leopard in the wild, most likely in India, and to help in person where she can. She does not have children, and she sees her life in conservation and the animals she supports as what she will leave behind. “Supporting Snow Leopard Trust, supporting snow leopards, that is my legacy to the world.”

At Snow Leopard Trust, we are grateful that Sue has placed her confidence in our long-term research to better understand and protect snow leopards, support coexistence with local communities, and conserve the landscapes they share. For more information about leaving a lasting legacy for snow leopards, visit our legacy page.

Photo credits: Snow Leopard Trust

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