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WorksheetsSnow Leopard Read Aloud and Questions
Total questions: 8
Worksheet time: 2hrs 30mins
Saving Snow Leopards
1 At the age of 16, Kyle McCarthy cradled the limp body of a snow leopard. He had helped his
father, Dr. Tom McCarthy, track the big cat among boulders in Mongolia and then use a drug to
make it go to sleep. Dr. McCarthy put a radio collar on the sleeping animal before setting the cat
free, unharmed.
2 “You can’t hold a snow leopard and not feel like that’s probably one of the peaks in your life,” says
Kyle. “The animal is so powerful when it’s awake, so beautiful, and so rarely seen.”
3 Kyle became a wildlife biologist like his father. Years later, he traveled to Kyrgyzstan in central Asia
to help protect snow leopards.
“Mountain Ghost”
4 The snow leopard is rarely seen by humans. This mysterious cat lives in 12 Asian countries among
the world’s tallest mountains.
5 The snow leopard is smaller than the tiger, the lion, and the leopard of Africa and Asia. It weighs
as much as a cheetah but is shorter and stockier. The cat’s compact shape and thick fur help
keep it warm in glacier-chilled air. Dark markings color its light-gray coat, helping it hide in rocky
places. Big paws make padding over snow easier. An extra-long tail provides balance on steep,
rugged ground.
6 You might think the snow leopard would be safe living in such cold, distant places, but it faces
many threats from humans. The cat has lost important stretches of habitat. (A habitat is a place that
fills an animal’s needs—mainly food, shelter, and mates.) Mining, wars, and overgrazing by farm
animals have all led to this loss of habitat
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Protecting the Herd
7 The loss of habitat has meant less food for the leopards. Snow leopards eat wild goats and sheep.
When farm animals eat too many plants, wild plant eaters can’t find enough food. Over time, the
numbers of wild goats and sheep go down, and snow leopards have less to eat. Then the big cats
eat farm animals, causing a big problem for farmers.
Groups are working to save the cats and benefit farmers at the same time. Some groups give
farmers wire screens and wood to keep snow leopards from entering their stables at night. Some
pay farmers for the animals they lose to snow leopards. In exchange, the farmers leave more room
and plants for the wild goats and sheep.
9 Scientists guess that only 3,500 to 7,500 snow leopards are alive today, but they need better ways
to count leopards before they will know.
10 Dr. Kyle McCarthy traveled to Kyrgyzstan to test ways of counting snow leopards. He camped in
the mountains with Dr. Jennifer McCarthy (his wife) and other coworkers. They saw no leopards,
but they hadn’t expected to. Instead, they looked for evidence the cats left behind, like scrapes
(claw marks).
11 The team also used automatic cameras. The scientists placed cameras that can sense movement
and heat along a mountain ridge. When a snow leopard neared one of these “camera traps,” the
camera snapped its picture.
12 Each snow leopard’s spot pattern is different. Scientists compared patterns in the photos to
recognize each cat and realized the cameras had taken photos of 15 different snow leopards.
A Near Miss
13 Shannon Kachel, Dr. Kyle McCarthy’s coworker, has searched for snow leopards in Tajikistan, where
he almost saw one. “I was hiking along a ridgeline in the late afternoon and came around the corner
of a rock outcropping to find a site with snow leopard signs all around,” Kachel says. “I could see and
hear where the cat had knocked some rocks loose as it ran away from me, but even though I waited
until it was nearly dark, I never saw the cat.”
14 Most people will never see a snow leopard, yet it has a right to live, Dr. Kyle McCarthy says. “It’s too
remarkable to think about losing.
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What is the central idea of paragraphs 1–3?
Seeing a snow leopard at a young age affected one scientist for his entire life.
A snow leopard is an extremely powerful and beautiful animal.
Scientists use a type of drug to make an animal go to sleep when they are studying it.
Older children often go along with their scientist parents on research trips.
Why did the author compare the snow leopard to other animals in paragraph 5?
to tell what things threaten snow leopards in the wild
to describe why the snow leopard has a light-gray coat
to show how the snow leopard is different from other big cats
to explain why snow leopards are safe in snowy environments
Read the sentence from paragraph 8.
Groups are working to save the cats and benefit farmers at the same time.
Think about the Latin root bene. What is the meaning of benefit above?
to end with a bad result
to be without a result
to provide a good result for
to get a surprising result
What central idea does the section “A Near Miss” help to develop?
Snow leopards leave signs of their presence.
Snow leopards are almost never seen in the wild.
Scientists are working hard to save snow leopards.
Cameras are necessary for counting snow leopards.
Read the sentence from paragraph 13.
“I was hiking along a ridgeline in the late afternoon and came around the corner of a rock
outcropping to find a site with snow leopard signs all around,” Kachel says.
Which word is a synonym for site as it is used above?
mark
zoo
signal
place
Which of these is a central idea of the passage?
Wildlife biologists track snow leopards and put radio collars on them.
Snow leopards are rare and beautiful animals, and they need to be protected.
One scientist almost saw a snow leopard, but it ran away before he got there.
Snow leopards make trouble for farmers by eating the animals the farmers raise.
