30 Vol. 32, No. 1, January 14, 2016 52 Ingestre Street, PO Box 325, Wanganui. Phone 345 3666 or 345 3655, fax 345 2644, email
[email protected] Searching for snow leopards in Afghanistan him of the latest security vodka. BY DOUG DAVIDSON risks.” But Ashley is committed “The local villagers are [ Ashley Vosper was in Wanganui re- friendly and are accepting with animals having being cently, with his wife Jenny, visiting Jen- of the project and of for- based in the Congo for up ny’s parents Trevor and Helen MacKay. eigners,” he says. They are to ten years specialising in Shia Muslims and distrust monkeys and even discov- He lives from April to for the New York based the Taliban who are Sunni ering a new species. After November in a village in World Wildlife Conserva- Muslims and so if there meeting Jenny in England Wakhan National Park tion Society. They do have was a threat, Ashley says, doing her OE, they came in Afghanistan searching solar power and he has “they would warn me. I to Wanganui to get mar- for snow leopards. When access to the internet and would grab my go-bag ried and for Ashley to winter strikes he has to to TV via a satellite dish. with passport and mon- study zoology and Ecol- get out as the tempera- The villagers were aware ey and cross the nearby ogy at Massey University. tures can get as low as of Afghanistan playing border with Tajikistan. I He describes himself as minus 20c and roads be- in the Cricket World Cup would be arrested and put half kiwi with his mother come unusable.