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Humans and leopards can co-exist: Wildlife biologist

The easy availability of food, especially feral animals like dogs, pigs and goats found near urban garbage dumps, is the main reason that attracts leopards to venture into human territory leading to a conflict situation with disastrous results for both. Leopards, like many other wild species, adapt well to human-dominated eco-systems and prefer "easy foods" available there rather than living in deep jungles and chasing difficult wild prey like deer.

In an illuminating workshop at the UT Guest House here on Thursday, Pune-based wildlife biologist, Dr Vidya Athreya, highlighted the many positive cases of interaction of humans and animals that were ignored in the general air of "negativity". The workshop was organized by the People for Animals, Chandigarh. Dr Athreya's ideas are gleaned from years of field research on the leopard-human conflict and also as a consultant to central and several state governments on conflict mitigation. "When a leopard enters a human area, please do not chase it. Often a drunkard in the mob goes for the leopard and it retaliates, leading to human injuries. The leopard should be left alone until the authorities arrive with trained staff to handle the traumatized creature," said Dr Athreya.

Her ideas have a particular relevance to Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana where the leopard-human conflict has taken a heavy toll. "I am strongly against capturing a leopard and freeing it in some far away jungle. Our studies of such leopards show that the creature is unfamiliar to new jungles and the disoriented leopard attacks humans near its new home. It is in turn attacked by the existing big cats of the jungle. If leopards are to be captured from human areas, they should be freed quickly and as near as possible to the site of capture. Any jungle is not a suitable home for any leopard,'' she said.

Though only negative stories appear on the human-leopard interaction, there are many untold cases of just the opposite. ''In Central India, there is a big cat deity called 'Wagobha', which is 900 years old. The ruralites worship Wagobha and big cats and do not seem to mind their presence. There are farmers who told me that they lived in tolerance with leopards and understood that it sometimes took their goats because it was hungry. There was another farmer, who had a leopard in his sugarcane fields, but he did not want the forest department to capture it because he said the big cat gave him no trouble. In many regions, leopards and rural inhabitants have lived for decades sharing spaces without any human death," she explained.

Dr Athreya acknowledged that the forest department was under tremendous pressure from people and politicians to "remove" leopards. She called upon NGOs and wildlife conservationists to intervene in such situations and work out a solution that was balanced and did not ignore the interests of the voiceless wildlife. "We must understand that herbivores like deer cause only a fraction of the damage to crops as compared to rodents. Leopards only lead to 10% of unnatural deaths of goats, whereas 80% of goats die due to disease," she added.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/...875240.cms
 

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