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Bigcats News
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For India’s Captive Leopards, A Life Sentence Behind Bars
by Richard Conniff, 20 June 2016 As sightings of leopards in populated areas increase, Indian authorities are trapping the animals and keeping them in captivity — often in small cages without adequate food or veterinary care. The real solution, wildlife advocates say, is to educate the public on how to coexist with the big cats.  *This image is copyright of its original author Diptendu Dutta/AFP/Getty Images. A captured wild female leopard being held at the Sukna Wildlife Rescue Center. When an escaped leopard tackled a man at poolside on a school campus in the southern Indian city of Bangalore early this year, the video went viral. The victim was one of the wildlife managers trying to recapture the animal. His colleagues finally managed to tranquilize it late that night and return it to a nearby zoo that was serving as a rescue center for a population of 16 wild-caught leopards. A week later, the leopard squeezed between the bars of another cage and escaped again, this time for good. All the news and social media attention focused on the attack — and none on the underlying dynamic. But that dynamic affects much of India. Even as leopards have vanished in recent decades from vast swaths of Africa and Asia, the leopard population appears to be increasing in this nation of 1.2 billion people. The leopards are adept at living unnoticed even amid astonishingly high human population densities. But conflicts inevitably occur. Enraged farmers sometimes kill the leopards. Trapping is a standard response, but religious and animal rights objections have made euthanasia for unwanted animals unthinkable. Thus anywhere from 100 to several hundred wild-caught leopards nationwide have ended up being trapped and locked away for life, in facilities that often cannot provide proper security, space, veterinary care, or feeding. In the Bangalore incident, the attack victim, leopard biologist Sanjay Gubbi, managed to fight off the leopard and stagger away with claw wounds on his right arm and torso, requiring 55 stitches. Two others working on the bungled re-capture effort also suffered minor injuries. The leopard, an eight-year-old male, had escaped in the first place (and later re-escaped), according to a manager at Bannerghatta Biological Park, because it was being kept there in cages designed for tigers or lions, not leopards. For lack of space, other rescue centers and zoos have kept leopards for months at a time in the box traps that were used to catch them. Until recently, one national park even put leopards on display in that fashion as a tourist attraction. Other facilities confine the leopards to narrow cells without access to outdoor space, though these animals are accustomed to roaming ten miles a day or more in the wild. The people charged with caring for the animals often have no way of doing better in the absence of adequate facilities and financial support. At Bannerghatta, said Sujay Suresh, a veterinarian and assistant director there, each leopard gets a 15-by-15-foot cubicle in a holding facility, and the park’s 16 wild-caught and 15 zoo-born leopards take turns sharing a one-acre outdoor area. The government has approved a plan for larger facilities, but without a budget. Feeding and routine care alone cost about 1,200 rupees ($18) a day per leopard, said Suresh, and more than that for the zoo’s three wild-caught tigers and 16 Afro-Asiatic lions confiscated from circuses. “If the animals are falling sick quite often, then there is a management issue,” he acknowledged, and then added, “Money, that’s the major issue of management.” But the problem runs deeper than that and starts with trapping that typically should not have happened in the first place, according to Vidya Athreya, a leopard biologist for the Wildlife Conservation Society. The general public, and even wildlife managers themselves, she said, are still often surprised to realize that most Indian wildlife lives outside protected areas, in human-dominated landscapes. That’s especially true for leopards.  *This image is copyright of its original author Richard Conniff. Captured leopards at a rescue center at Sanjay Gandhi National Park. They have thrived in part because the land area under irrigation has greatly expanded over the past 50 years. That’s converted formerly arid, inhospitable landscapes into dense stands of sugar cane and other crops, providing new habitat and daytime hiding places for the leopards. By night, they come out to prey on wildlife and on the country’s large population of pigs, rats, and street dogs, which in turn are supported by open disposal of garbage and by laws against culling of unowned dogs. Though the leopard population is officially estimated at around 12,000 animals, they are notoriously difficult to count. One wildlife biologist conjectured that the true number could be as high as 25,000 (but noted that this may still be far lower than India’s 19th-century leopard population). Leopards that are injured, or weakened by age, sometimes resort to preying on livestock. Attacks on humans also occur with dismaying frequency. But people who are inexperienced with wildlife often regard just seeing a leopard in a human area as conflict, said Athreya. They call a local political leader or the Indian Forest Service to demand trapping. Phone videos posted on social media can help turn a brief sighting into a panic. Wildlife managers often respond by setting out box traps and taking away any leopards they can catch. A national law forbids that kind of trapping without written permission from a relatively high-ranking government official, but the practical reality is that it’s a way to appease angry residents. “Problem” tigers, and, just last month, a pride of Asiatic lions, can face the same fate, but captive populations are much smaller for those species. No one keeps track of the number of wild-caught animals of all species kept in captivity across India. In the past, wildlife managers quietly relocated trapped leopards to national parks or other areas as far as possible from the point of capture. But those leopards ended up stressed by the trauma of captivity and adrift in unfamiliar territory already occupied by other leopards. A devastating series of studies by Athreya linked the relocated leopards to attacks on humans and concluded that, in the absence of relocation, serious human-leopard conflict was uncommon. Trapping didn’t even improve the problem for the community where the trapping took place, because other leopards, generally younger and with less experience at negotiating human-dominated landscapes, quickly took over the newly vacated territory. Athreya’s work has discouraged reliance on trapping in some areas, notably the city of Mumbai, a crowded metropolis of 21 million people, which nonetheless accommodates a free-ranging resident population of 35 leopards in and around its unfenced national park. “I used to get calls from people in apartment buildings saying, ‘I can see a leopard in the forest, please send someone to trap it,’” said Vikas Gupta, director of Sanjay Gandhi National Park there. Instead, the park, together with local conservation groups, now provides workshops with guidelines on safely coexisting with leopards. No attacks on humans have occurred in the city since 2013. But trapping is still the standard response elsewhere. “The whole process is fueled by corruption,” said one wildlife biologist, who asked not to be named. “There is money in the steel cages. There is money in the trapping. These are all opportunities for skimming.” Another biologist encountered fierce resistance on pointing out that a captive leopard does not require 15 pounds of meat a day — and eventually surmised that the meat wasn’t all ending up on the leopard’s dinner plate.  *This image is copyright of its original author Biju Boro/AFP/Getty. A leopard in transport after being captured in the Indian city of Guwahati. The somewhat more optimistic news is that trapped leopards increasingly get set free again, after a day or two to inspect for sickness or injuries — if only because there is no room left to keep them in captivity . The policy is to release them back into the territory where they were caught, but according to Athreya, relocations, almost always conducted in secret, are still common. A few rescue centers have also begun to build proper facilities for long-term warehousing of leopards. In the new $235,000 rescue center at Sanjay Gandhi National Park, for instance, each leopard, or pair of leopards, occupies a small night cage, but spends the day in an outdoor area about a third the size of an NBA basketball court, usually with a tree trunk to climb and other forms of enrichment. Even better, the facility operates below capacity, with just 17 leopards in 22 cages. What’s still missing, said Athreya, is a coherent, science-based national policy for dealing with wildlife outside protected areas, which cover just five percent of the nation on paper (and more like three percent in reality). “In Mumbai, management was open enough to engage with science,” said Athreya, “and it was possible to sit together and work on a solution.” But that rarely happens elsewhere. That’s partly because the national government, especially under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has so far shown little interest in making scientists part of the decision-making process. But it’s also the fault, said Athreya, of scientists who are unwilling to engage with wildlife managers and ill-equipped by their training to deal with the complicated social, political, and economic issues surrounding wildlife. Thus, decisions about wildlife continue to be made on the fly, without scientific input. Culling — or what a former environment minister has dubbed “lust for killing” — has recently become government policy in some states for elephants, macaque monkeys, wild boar, nilgai antelope, and even peacocks that happen to present a nuisance. Decision-makers do not even rely on scientists to measure the effectiveness of different management strategies, whether it’s putting elephants on birth control, culling macaques, or locking up leopards and other species for life. Unless that haphazard management style changes, people and wildlife may ultimately cease to exist together outside protected areas — especially as India displaces China to become the most populous nation in the world by 2030. 
Assam divisional forest officer held with Rs 66 lakh cash, ivory, tiger skin
In a sensational raid, the Anti-Corruption Branch of Assam Police on June 13 not only recovered over Rs 66 lakh in cash from a Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Mohit Chandra Talukdar, from his office in Dhemaji district, but also found at least one tiger skin, some quantity of ivory and other animal parts. The arrest and recovery came at a time when forest minister Pramila Rani Brahma had been struggling to put an end to rhino poaching in Kaziranga National Park amid allegations that forest personnel had a hand in most of the poaching incidents and other forest-related crimes. Talukdar, who has been posted in Dhemaji district in eastern Assam for over two years now, was initially arrested by the ACB sleuths after trapping him and catching him red-handed with Rs 30,000 that he had sought from three truck owners who were transporting some forest produce with legal documents. "When the ACB team from Guwahati, along with our district police personnel raided his official quarter, it led to recovery of Rs 62.25 lakh in cash, and two fixed deposit documents worth Rs 15 lakh each. A simultaneous raid in his private residence in Guwahati has already led to recovery of about Rs 4.27 lakh in cash,” Dhemaji SP Swapnaneel Deka told The Indian Express late Monday night. Officials conducting the raid in his multi-storeyed private residence on the posh Mother Teresa Road here on the other hand said at least one tiger skin, two kgs of ivory and various other animal parts have been already seized. Two lockers in his private residence were yet to be opened, it was gathered. DFO Talukdar has been booked under Sections 7, 13(1) and 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Reports said DFO Talkudar had, since his posting in Dhemaji district bordering Arunachal Pradesh allegedly set up at least 11 illegal forest check gates and had deployed his subordinate staff to collect cash from trucks and other vehicles carrying any kind of forest produce, whether legally or illegally. While the check gates were abolished soon after new Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal ordered for their closure immediately after taking charge on May 24, DFO Talukdar was allegedly collecting money from trucks and other vehicles by “seizing” them and keeping them confined in the divisional forest office. Last week police received a complaint from three local transporters that the DFO had asked for Rs 10,000 each for trucks that had been “seized” despite legal documents and necessary permits. Accordingly, a trap was laid by the police backed by ACB sleuths who had rushed from Guwahati, and Talukdar was caught red-handed with the cash, SP Deka said. http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/assam-divisional-forest-officer-held-with-rs-66-lakh-cash-ivory-tiger-skin-2851014/  
An example of instant karma
Pride of Lions Kills 5 Poachers and Injured 3 others in Zimbabwe The Zimbabwean authorities have confirmed that 5 men were killed and 3 others were severely injured when attacked by a pride of lions in the Hwange National Park, in the Matabeleland North province. Read full news http://www.thezimbabwenewslive.com/crime...thers.html 
@sanjay :
About #956: very impressive account and news. I really want to say "Bravo to the lions ! Well done !", and I say it. Perhaps you're quite right: an exemple of instant karma. The Cecil's spirit motivated and transcended these lions (this is an account from Zimbabwe, the Cecil's country). 
Found this on facebook on the group C.L.A.W
 *This image is copyright of its original author
Samir Ingale
Missing Jai - #FindJai The story so far Jai was first radio collared in Sept 2015 , after few months the collar stopped functioning. It was collared again in March 16 this year, to fail again within a few days. The WII scientist’s statement that was carried in newspapers stated - “ There is every possibility that Jai may have moved in search of new territory. It must have become logical for Jai not to challenge the younger males. This may be one of the reasons for his absence from Karhandla” Jai's age is around 7 years which is a stage when these carnivores are challenged by younger and fitter males in their territory. In Umred, all of the females have litters fathered by Jai and in areas near Brahmapuri as well, few females have litters probably fathered by Jai.” And an excuse that the collar stopped working due to high tension wires around where Jai roamed. This is our view on the above three points - Jai is a tiger in his prime, he will not see threat from tigers of 2-3 years of age, all sired by him. The age of 7 years as quoted by WII is wrong as Jai is just 5.5 years old. Jai was born in Nov/ Dec 2010, that makes him 5.5 years old when he went missing. The month of birth has been confirmed from a retd senior officer from Nagzira. The high tension lines can produce temporary malfunctioning in the radio collar, but will not render it useless completely, this again has been confirmed from expert in the field. The forest department has undertaken extensive foot patrolling , cameras have been reinstalled at strategic points, all adjoining forest depts have been sensitised and are also searching for Jai, the leaders have also taken up this cause and are following up on Jai’s whereabouts . Looking at lack of result from the above, local NGOs and wildlifers have formed a team to search the areas and track Jai, all by themselves. There are meetings today, near different villages, where Jai frequently traveled. Though the fear of we losing him is imminent , we at CLaW want to believe that Jai will resurface and surprise us all. Links to Print Media News - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/…/articlesh…/53231321.cms http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/…/articlesh…/53256214.cms Sirf hungama khada karna mera maksad nahi, Meri koshish hai ki ye surat badalni chahiye. Mere seene mein nahi to tere seene mein sahi, Ho kahin bhi aag, lekin aag jalni chahiye.
59 tigers radio collared
New Delhi, Apr 26 () Fifty-nine wild cats have been radio collared in various tiger reserves across the country, the government today said, noting that information provided by the collared tigers was "critical" for conservation of the species. "While the maximum 35 tigers have been radio collared in various tiger reserves in Madhya Pradesh, 14 have been done in two tiger reserves in Rajasthan," Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said in a written reply in Lok Sabha. He said that the cost of radio collar depends on the purpose for which it is intended to be customised. "A simple VHF radio collar with battery life of three to four years will cost between Rs 25,000-30,000. This collar will help in tracking animals in the field. "The more advanced radio collars with GPS, activity sensor, mortality sensor, VHF, UHF, automatic drop off etc cost almost Rs 3-4.50 lakhs. This depends upon the research programme intended to be addressed," Javadekar said. He said the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has not evaluated the potential harm caused by the radio collars for the tigers. The minister also informed that a tigress in Pench tiger reserve has given birth to four cubs. "All the tigress of Panna and Sariska tiger reserves are collared and doing well. The information provided by radio collared tigers is critical for long term conservation of the species," he said. TDS DV Share to Twitter (This story has not been edited by timesofindia.com and is auto–generated from a syndicated feed we subscribe to.) http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/...992460.cms
There is some vital information reported by Ranveer Singh Gautam About Jai and other tigers, He wrote in FB page about the missing tigers and I think it is worth of sharing with WildFact members
"Jai - The lone traveller , poached or migrated " - While this legend male's disappearance is making news everywhere , 100 brave heart members from various NGOs and group are searching across the forest of umred karandla . There are around 20 tigers missing around Tadoba andhari tiger reserve buffer zone which include famous female called Katrina of buffer zone , Shivaji from kolsa , Male cubs of Wagdoh , Lohara Male tiger , Male tiger from Ghosri and much more according to various forums and social media experts .Either we can claim that they are poached or they might have migrated we can't ignore any of the facts . Facts which need to be understood that forest department does not disclose locations of tigers , tiger migrate a lot so monitoring them every time practically is not possible with current facilities that forest guards have , With a two wheeler and a stick accompanied by a local forest labour they are asked to watch & monitor tiger . A loud noise is always made on social media and other forums to spread news , awareness and some use them as publicity tools , like the way they have used the famous tiger from Ranthambore called " Ustad " but the fact which always needs all your focus and attention is forcing system to provide the protectors better facilities to protect our tigers or we the people should come forward to help them in this . Jai is not the alone tiger which is missing . Every year around 10 to 15 new tigers are born and noticed nearby tatr and what happens to them is still not known . We need to protect forest and help forest guards who are protecting them . Its very easy to comment , post , like here on social media forum but the job on fields are really tough . This is my take on this current missing case of Jai . Even I want this Male tiger to be back , but also want each and every wild tiger to be protected and safe . Picture published in DNA newspaper
Rare leopards released into Russian reserve threatened by a ski resort
by Arthur Neslen, Friday 15 July 2016 Three endangered Persian leopard cubs are intended to reintroduce the species to the Sochi area but new plans for a ski trail put the future of the reserve and the animals at risk.  *This image is copyright of its original author Conservationist says a proposed new ski trail will cut off a vital corridor to Turkmenistan for the free-roaming leopards. Photograph: WWF Three Persian leopard cubs have been released into the Sochi area of Russia’s western Caucasus, a day after Unesco threatened to deem the area a “world heritage site in danger” because of a planned ski resort expansion. Persian leopards once prowled across the Caucasus mountains in great numbers but poaching, poisoning and human encroachment wiped out the species in Russia, in the early 20th century. The new reintroduction plan was intended to lay the foundation for a new population of the charismatic big cats, which are now thought to number less than 500 across central Asia. But conservationists say that a recent vote in the Russian parliament to weaken environmental protections, and allow new ski trail constructions in Sochi, will cut off a vital corridor to Turkmenistan for the free-roaming animals. Igor Chestin, the CEO of WWF Russia said: “We had hoped to release these very special leopards into a secure environment. Instead they will enter the unknown. The future of the western Caucasus is hanging in the balance.” At a conference in Istanbul on Thursday, the world conservation body, Unesco, warned that the Russian parliament’s vote could have “negative impacts” on the Persian leopards’ reintroduction. Construction of large scale infrastructure on the site could lead to its being placed on the list of world heritage sites in danger, the committee agreed. But it declined to do so immediately, despite pleas from conservationists.  *This image is copyright of its original author Persian leopard were once common across across the mountains in the Caucasus region, but populations declined due to human activities such as hunting. Photograph: WWF WWF Russia says it wants the International Olympic Committee to be more proactive in pressuring Russia to honour environmental promises made at the time of the 2014 winter games in Sochi. At the time, Russia pledged to expand two protection areas around the world heritage site. Last week however, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, signed off an amendment to allow new ski constructions within the site itself. The original ground-breaking plan to bring the endangered leopard species back from the dead envisaged 100 big cats returning to the region’s forests and mountains. These would have followed traditional migratory routes to mate with female cats in Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia. If the ski resorts are built as planned though, no more than 30-40 big cats will establish themselves in the western Caucasus, Chestin said. “The development of ski resorts will destroy the connectivity of the protected area between the central and western Caucasus where leopards are still occasionally observed,” he told the Guardian. “A few dozen animals may be able to live there, but it would be a deadlocked development.” The Russian leopard breeding programme used cats donated by Iran – which houses the world’s largest remaining population – as well as from Turkmenistan, and Portugal. Cubs born in the project’s state of the art reintroduction and rehabilitation centre spent a year in captivity with their mother. “It was more important and difficult to develop avoidance of contact with humans than the ability to hunt,” Chestin said.  *This image is copyright of its original author The cubs were only released once they had learned to hunt food for themselves. Photograph: WWF The cubs were then separated and put into large 100 sq metre enclosures, where they started to be fed with live animals to learn how to kill. First they were given domestic animals, then wild ones. “When they started to kill animals the size of a deer we assumed they were ready to live on their own in the wild,” Chestin said. “All the animals released today passed the test with excellent results.” The three animals now reorienting themselves to their ancestral hunting ground – a female called Victoria, and two males named Akhun and Kili – are between two and three years old. More leopards are expected to be released to the Alpine region, 30m east of Sochi, in 2018. Video:
Construction of leopard reintroduction centre set to begin in 2017 in Primorye
15 July 2016 by Far Eastern Leopards News "The Far Eastern leopard reintroduction centre may be built in Russia in 2017, Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Sergei Donskoi told RIA Novosti. "We plan to start the construction at Lazovsky Nature Reserve next year as part of the Far Eastern leopard reintroduction programme," Mr Donskoi said. The minister added that Far Eastern environmentalists will take into account the experience of Sochi National Park's Persian Leopard Breeding Centre, whose inhabitants — Akhun and Killi, both males, and Viktoria, a female — were released into the wild on 15 July. The construction of the reintroduction centre in the Primorye Territory will be carried out under a programme to restore the Far Eastern leopard population. The executive order to establish the programme was signed by the minister of natural resources and environment in June 2015. At the centre, young animals will be prepared for life in the wild, and they will be released at Lazovsky Nature Reserve."
In BEIJING wildlife zoo, where a tiger mauled a visitor to death and left another seriously injured, has been closed.
The incident happened on Saturday in the tiger enclosure at the Badaling Safari World, where visitors can drive in their vehicles, but they are warned not to get out of the vehicles. But two of them did not heed the warning, the publicity department of Yanqing District said. Sources told the Legal Evening News that the car was carrying a family of four — a middle-aged woman, a young woman, a man and a child. Reportedly, the young woman had a quarrel with the man, and got out of the car at which point a Siberian tiger pounced on her and dragged her away. The older woman got out of the car and tried to drag her back, but was attacked by another tiger, the paper reported. The family was rescued when zoo workers rushed to chase off the tigers. The older woman died on the spot, and the younger one was sent to the hospital but is in serious condition. This wasn’t the first such case at the zoo. In August 2014, a male worker was killed by a tiger.  (07-20-2016, 12:03 PM)sanjay Wrote: There is some vital information reported by Ranveer Singh Gautam About Jai and other tigers, He wrote in FB page about the missing tigers and I think it is worth of sharing with WildFact members sanjay, I agree with you 100%. Its very very disturbing and sad. When such high profile tiger disappear we all understand the seriousness. I have been going to tadoba since last few years regularly and always wondered whats happening to so many cubs born each year ( currently there are 20-25 cubs in TATR). they either migrate or get poached. shame on human beings ! In fact I was just talking to my friend from Umred area. They spotted all but Jai in last few days. The last photo of Jai is of 16 april in a camera trap in pawani range as I understand. He had gone to bramhapuri range and retuned by that time. His collar also malfunctioned due to high tension wires in the area. He was traveling in direction of pench then. Aftee that no trace of him. praying to God to keep him safe. One of the most beautiful creature I have ever seen ! |
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