These landscapes fall within mountain ranges of the Himalaya, Hindu Kush and Karakoram-Pamir, respectively. Based on our findings we propose three model landscapes to be considered under the Global Snow Leopard Ecosystem Protection Program (GSLEP) agenda as regional priority areas, to safeguard the future of the snow leopard in Pakistan and the region. Similarly, the Pamir-Karakoram population is better connected with China and Tajikistan, while the Himalayan population was connected with the population in India. The connectivity analysis revealed that the population in the Hindukush landscape appears to be more connected with the population in Afghanistan as compared to other populations in Pakistan. These validation tests suggested a good model fit and strong predictive power. The average test AUC in Maxent for the replicate runs was 0.933 while the value of AUC by ROC curve calculated at 0.15 threshold was 1.00. The model was validated through receiver operating characteristic (ROC) plots and defined thresholds. Variables with higher contributions in the Ma圎nt model were precipitation during the driest month (34%), annual mean temperature (19.5%), mean diurnal range of temperature (9.8%), annual precipitation (9.4%), and river density (9.2). Conversely, Khunjerab, Misgar, Chapursan, Qurumber, Broghil, and Central Karakoram represented high-quality habitats. A large portion of the known range represented low-quality habitat, including areas in lower Chitral, Swat, Astore, and Kashmir. The probability of habitat suitability, generated from 98 presence points and 11 environmental variables, scored the snow leopard’s assumed range in Pakistan, from 0 to 0.97. Moreover, movement corridors, among different landscapes, were also identified through circuit theory. The current study followed this approach to construct an accurate distribution of the species in Pakistan. Recent technological developments like camera trapping and molecular genetics allow for collecting reliable presence records that could be used to construct realistic species distribution based on empirical data and advanced mathematical approaches like Ma圎nt. However, this preliminary demarcation was not always in close agreement with the actual distribution-the discrepancy may be huge at the local and regional level. Pakistan’s total estimated snow leopard habitat is about 80,000 km 2 of which about half is considered prime habitat.
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