Ungulate conservation directly affects conservation of their predators and habitats. Assessing conservation status of ungulates found in the mountains is particularly challenging given the tough terrain and extreme weather. This is true for Central and South Asia’s mountains which harbour high ungulate diversity. Urial Ovis vignei, a Vulnerable wild sheep, occurs patchily across Asian mountains. Ladakh urial Ovis vignei vignei is a subspecies restricted to Ladakh and Gilgit-Baltistan in the trans-Himalaya. Poor understanding of its conservation status has limited conservation efforts in the region. We conducted a distribution survey using single-season single-species occupancy, with spatial replicates accounting for auto-correlated replicate-level presence across the entire potential urial habitat (3425km²) in Ladakh, India. We then identified remaining populations and conducted double-observer surveys to estimate densities. We found urial to use only 32% (16–53%) of its presumed range. We estimated densities of 1.27 (1.27–1.39) urial km⁻² and 0.96 (0.96–1.10) urial km⁻² across the two landscapes covering 18% of surveyed area. These two areas are currently the last remaining strongholds for the species in India, yet densities were lower than expected when compared to previous studies. Urial distribution in India overlaps with human use like habitations, livestock grazing, and roads, hence effective conservation of the species will need involvement of local communities. We propose annual monitoring of urial and setting up community-based livestock-free reserves across the two landscapes. More such robust investigations at meaningful large scales are needed to direct conservation action for the understudied mountain ungulates of high Asia.

有蹄类动物保护直接影响其捕食者和栖息地的保护。鉴于崎岖的地形和极端天气，评估山区有蹄类动物的保护状况尤其具有挑战性。对于中亚和南亚的山脉来说，情况确实如此，这些山脉拥有高度的有蹄类动物多样性。Urial Ovis vignei是一种易受伤害的野羊，分布在亚洲山区。拉达克 urial Ovis vignei vignei是一个亚种，仅限于跨喜马拉雅山的拉达克和吉尔吉特-巴尔蒂斯坦。对其保护状况的了解不足限制了该地区的保护工作。我们使用单季单物种占有率进行了分布调查，空间重复解释了印度拉达克整个潜在尿道栖息地（3425km ²）的自相关重复水平存在。然后我们确定了剩余的种群并进行了双观察者调查以估计密度。我们发现 urial 仅使用其假定范围的 32% (16–53%)。我们估计密度为 1.27 (1.27-1.39) urial km ^-2和 0.96 (0.96-1.10) urial km ^-2跨越这两个景观覆盖了 18% 的调查区域。这两个地区目前是该物种在印度的最后一个据点，但与之前的研究相比，密度低于预期。印度的尿尿分布与人类使用如栖息地、放牧和道路重叠，因此有效保护该物种需要当地社区的参与。我们建议对尿道进行年度监测，并在这两个景观中建立以社区为基础的无牲畜保护区。需要在有意义的大规模范围内进行更多此类强有力的调查，以指导对亚洲高地未充分研究的山地有蹄类动物的保护行动。