It is one of three members of the genus Perisoreus, the others being the Siberian jay, P. infaustus, found from Norway to eastern Russia, and the Canada jay, P. canadensis, restricted to the boreal forest and western montane regions of North America.

All three species store food and live year-round on permanent territories in coniferous forests.

They are mostly situated in isolated fragments of highly elevated coniferous forests on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau of west-central China.

Climate change might force these birds to migrate northward and upward, where areas remaining for such compensatory extension are quite restricted.

In addition, acceptable habitat will become much more disconnected, which may increase the negative effects of climate change indirectly by slowing, or halting gene flow and accelerating the rate of extinction of fragmented local populations.