leopardus jacobita

The most endangered cat in The Americas needs your help. Researchers of the Andean Cat Alliance are going all out to learn as much as they can about this beautiful little cat before it’s too late. The entire population of the Andean Cat throughout their range is estimated to be around 1,300 cats. Conservation measures are urgently needed, and you can help.

#1 Spreading The Word

The biggest, most reversible problem facing the Andean cat is one that this campaign seeks to reverse: no one knows this species exists and is fighting for survival.

Because most people have never heard of Andean cats, very little support from the wildlife conservation community is available to help these cats face human-caused challenges that are driving them closer to extinction: climate change, habitat ravaging mining, vicious feral dogs, and myths held by locals who, in turn, kill these cats with trained hunting dogs.

Despite only catching a glimpse of this cat once in the wild (and being one of less than 10 people to ever do so), researcher and conservationist Rodrigo Villalobos has made it his life’s work to conserve these elusive creatures. Through hiking thousands of miles through the Andes Mountains over the span of 12 years and setting a network of camera traps, Rodrigo and his research partner Cristian have discovered one of the rarest populations of Andean cats.

The Power of Wildlife Documentaries

Wildlife documentaries raise awareness about important wildlife issues through high quality imagery. Just think about African wildlife that are relatively easy to see and film — lions, elephants, and rhinos. Most people have never stepped foot in the African savannah yet, through documentary films, we feel like we’ve looked inside their private lives and have a strong understanding of the huge conservation battles these creatures are facing. But what happens with wildlife that is very difficult to film because they are very secretive, rare, and live in extremely harsh terrains? Unfortunately for the Andean cat, this is the problem their species is facing. Now, for the first time in Andean cat conservation history, our team has found a reliable location to film this cat. This is where you come in for the Andean cat: we need you to improve the quality of our footage by 4K professional, high definition cameras. With high quality footage we have an extremely high chance of getting word about Andean cats out to people around the world through syndicated and huge media networks.

Through funding assistance of 501(3)c nonprofit, Friends of Fauna, you can make any size contribution right now and be one of the people to purchase the actual equipment that will be used to film, by camera person, the Andean cat in high definition for the very first time. Can you imagine being able to say you funded the very first camera to film the African elephant or Bengal tiger and introduce these species, through the power of social media, to the world? This is the exact opportunity you have to do with an animal even rarer than elephants or tigers — the Andean cat.

Visit their Indigogo page to help researchers publicize the plight of these cats.

Canadian donors use this link

#2 Double Your Support to Purchase Camera Traps

The Andean cat is one of the most enigmatic creatures of Earth, and conservationists have been struggling for years to design effective conservation actions for a species that has been considered the ghost of the Andes. Reality proves that we need to be able to find key areas where the cat is, to make the most relevant decisions that will ensure its long term conservation.

You can make this happen, your support is critical to find hotspots for conservation.

An anonymous donor provided matching funds to buy equipment for making a big scale camera trapping effort in key areas, for long term conservation of Andean cats and a whole landscape. With the acceleration of global warming and the knowledge that Andes and Patagonia will be highly impacted by this phenomenon, it is URGENT to find these sites, and you can make a difference!

Your gift will be matched completely, so you will double your impact immediately, but you need to hurry, this offer ends the first week of January, so PLEASE, donate NOW!

If you give:
USD $40 we can buy batteries and memory cards for one camera
USD $80 you support food and lodging fo one field person
USD $180 you buy a regular camera trap
USD $450 you gift an HD camera trap
USD $2500 you cover a field campaign to review cameras for a whole team!

Every amount helps and will be immediately matched!

Donate now through The Wildlife Conservation Network

Text and photos by Sebastian Kennerknecht

Andean Cat biologist Juan Reppucci climbs up a ridge near Mount Grenada, northerwestern Argentina.

An Andean Cat slowly walks along a ridge in the high Andes. A camera’s shutter clicks. The cat pauses to see where the noise is coming from. The camera takes a few more pictures. Curious, the feline approaches and cheek rubs the waterproof case surrounding the camera. I wake up.

That’s the dream I had while sleeping in a tent in western Bolivia while working on the Cat in Thin Air project. My name is Sebastian Kennerknecht and for years I have dreamed of photographing the Andean Cat to then use those pictures to aid in their conservation. To make this a reality I teamed up with the amazing biologists of the Andean Cat Alliance and created the Cat in Thin Air project.

The goal of the project is simple: help ensure the survival of the Andean Mountain Cat through education on a local and global scale. The method was also simple at least in concept: photograph the ecology of the cat, the human caused threats the cats face, as well as the conservation actions being taken to protect this animal, to then tell the Andean Cat’s whole story to be shared with the world.

So it was time to head to Bolivia and Argentina to meet up with the researchers who have been studying the species for years.

Cintia Tellaeche and Juan Reppucci loading truck with gear. Do you think we brought enough?

The research truck leans heavily around a corner as it climbs higher into the Andes.

Timely tightening of all the nuts by biologist Juan Reppucci was appreciated by all!

Once we arrived at the study site the beauty of the area became more than obvious.

Rock formations in the high Andes, Jujuy Province, northwestern Argentina.

So how do you photograph a cat species that most researchers studying the species have never even seen themselves? The answer is simple: SLR camera traps. Imagine a professional camera connected to two flashes all of which are connected to a triggering device that activates the camera when an animal passes through an invisible beam.

One of the camera traps in the Altiplano of Bolivia.

All of the biologists, including Juan Reppucci, Cintia Tellaeche, Mauro Lucherini, Alejandra Torrez, and Juan Carlos Huaranca, being the amazing people that they are put their research projects on hold and helped me not only set up these camera traps but also schlep them up the mountain.

Andean Cat biologist Cintia Tellaeche taking a breather. At over 13,000 feet every step is hard work.

We placed four of these camera trap set-ups to try and get pictures of these elusive cats. After that it was time to be patient and focus on the other photographs (like the threats and the biologist’s research — – but sadly if I write about that here, this post will simply get too long). After five weeks we collected all the traps and checked the results of the cameras.

A weird animal that decided he needed to check the camera trap was working properly (yes, that’s me).

Culpeo (Lycalopex culpaeus) fox, Ciudad de Pedra, western Bolivia — Culpeo fox (Lycalopex culpaeus), Ciudad de Pedra, western Bolivia

Molina’s Hog-Nosed Skunk (Conepatus chinga), Ciudad de Pedra, western Bolivia

Whenever I go on assignment to try and photograph a wild cat species (in the wild!) that hasn’t been photographed a whole lot, looking through the camera trap images is both nerve racking and extremely exciting. Getting pictures of a fox and a skunk was of course more than great, but it wasn’t the goal of the project. When I saw a picture of an Andean Cat on the back of the camera, all my fears went right away (due to multiple reasons we can’t publish this image yet); and that image was followed by the discovery of a Pampas Cat.

Pampas Cat (Leopardus colocolo), Ciudad de Pedra, western Bolivia

All our efforts were rewarded by this single picture. This will hopefully be the first of many pictures of the cat species found in the Andes. Only time will tell as I will return to South America next year. If you’d like to find out more about the Cat in Thin Air Project, please visit: http://catinthinair.org/ . Finally, I’d like to also make sure Lilian Villaba is acknowledged for all the work she put into making this project a reality!

Two Ways You Can Help Andean Cats

#1 Spreading The Word

#2 Double Your Support to Purchase Camera Traps

In Search of the Wild Cats of the high Andes