PEOPLE & PLACES
as trying to fi lm the Western
tragopan—it took us two
years to fi nally get a shot of
the bird in the wild. (It was the
fi rst time the bird had been
captured on fi lm, establishing
its presence in the region.)
There were some periods
during the fi lming of both
these rare species when I was
completely alone for a coupleWHAT HAS BEEN YOUR MOST
MEMORABLE WILDLIFE
EXPEDITION?
Each time we set out to
fi lm wildlife, it’s a unique
experience. It’s hard to
compare them and pick just
one! Trying to track snow
leopards, though, has been
one of the more dii cult
expeditions, almost as hard
Mike Pandey
Wil dlife FilmmakerMIKE PANDEY HAS SPENT A
LIFETIME FILMING WILDLIFE
AROUND THE GLOBE. HE TELLS
US WHY THE SNOW LEOPARD OF
LADAKH WAS THE TOUGHEST.
IT’S A WILD,
WILD LIFE
of days, sitting in a hide and
waiting as quietly as one can,
watching nature do what she’s
been doing for millions of
years. I quenched my thirst
with water from streams,
barely eating, and slowly falling
in tune with the rhythm of the
environment. It was on one
such day that I experienced a
surreal moment of clarity: I feltinvisible, insignifi cant, and an
integral part of life on earth.TELL US THE MOST
THRILLING ANECDOTE OF
YOUR WILDLIFE CAREER.
Again, there are too many to
pick one. The latest episode
was one where we tried to
set up camera traps at a very
high altitude at dusk. We had
climbed for a few hours, and
in an attempt to travel light,
I had stupidly left behind my
warm jacket. The side of the
mountain was made almost
entirely of crumbling shale.
The three-hour descent was
in total darkness along a sheer
cliff face on one side, and was a
combination of sliding, falling,
getting up, and then sliding
some more with the loose shale. WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO
TRACK AND PHOTOGRAPH
THE ELUSIVE SNOW
LEOPARD IN LADAKH?
We need to fi lm sequences to
tell a story, so patience and
luck are essential. And when
you run out of both, you need
a brief sighting or a pugmark
to get you all charged up again.
Little is known about the
elusive and enigmatic snowFROM TOP: COURTESY OF MIKE PANDEY; ADITYA “DICKY” SINGH/ALAMYA snow leopard on
the rocky slopes
of Hemis National
Park, Ladakh.