Boone Smith is on a search for the world's most elusive big cat in one of the most dangerous places on the planet: Afghanistan.
It's not a military mission that has brought expert trapper Smith into the battleground, but a conservation group that hopes to save the snow leopard, one of several big cat species in dramatic decline.
"It's the only cat I'd follow into a war zone," Smith says. "The snow leopard is this mystical, legendary creature, and it's the toughest cat in the world to catch and to find."
Smith has been tasked with the challenge of finding and trapping a snow leopard and collaring it with a GPS locator. The collar will give the researchers a chance to collect 13 months of data to study the cat and attempt to protect the species.
"We know so little about snow leopards, so everything we gain from these GPS collars is new," Smith says. "It's little dots and pieces at first, but once it comes together, it will be huge."
There are only 100 to 200 snow leopards in all of Afghanistan and 2,000 left in the world. Because of their elusiveness, snow leopards haven't been studied as closely as other species.
National Geographic is kicking off its third annual Big Cat Week with a special on Smith and the snow leopard of Afghanistan this Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on Nat Geo WILD. The week is part of National Geographic's Big Cats Initiative, an effort to stop poaching, protect habitats and save several species of big cats.
Smith's fieldwork was led by a team of Wildlife Conservation Society members and Afghan veterinarians, and it was sponsored by National Geographic Society, Nat Geo WILD and the U.S. Agency for International Development .
"The tiger is one of the greatest and saddest losses," says Peter Zahler, deputy director of the Asia Program for the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Tigers have seen a 97% decline in the past 100 years. There are only 3,000 to 3,200 left, Zahler said.
"That is a pretty staggeringly significant decline in that amount of time," Zahler says.
More than two-thirds of the African lion population has disappeared in the past 50 years, according to a recent study in the journal Biodiversity and Conservation. The study estimates the number of lions living on the savanna to be as low as 32,000, down from nearly 100,000 in 1960.
The Cheetah Conservation Fund estimates that in 1900, more than 100,000 cheetahs were found in at least 44 countries throughout Africa and Asia. The species is extinct from more than 20 countries, and about 10,000 animals remain.
"In many cases, we are looking at the loss of some of the world's most astonishing organisms on the planet," Zahler says. "If nothing is done, it will leave a gaping hole, not just in the ecosystem but for all of us."