As forests disappear in India, leopards have learnt to live and prey among human habitats
Unpacking patterns of leopard attacks on livestock and landscape features in the Indian Himalayas offers clues to potential human-leopard conflict hotspots, a study has said amid increasing encounters of wildlife with humans.
Rapid deforestation and human-impacts on their habitats force these large carnivores to venture into unlikely landscapes outside protected areas for prey and cover, said scientists at Wildlife Institute of India.
Research by the team is unraveling how landscape features such as abandoned farmlands, tea gardens, and distance from protected areas, increase the probability of leopards attacking livestock in North Bengal in the Eastern Himalayas and Pauri Garhwal district of Uttarakhand in the Western Himalayas.
The team has studied patterns of leopard predation and analysed landscape features to map conflict hotspots in the study sites where wildlife managers, conservationists, and communities can work together to devise and reframe strategies to reduce livestock depredation by leopards within the Indian Himalayan region. Such measures will help reduce retaliation by local communities and ensure the survival of leopards outside protected reserves, the study claims.
“We investigated 857 attacks on livestock in Eastern Himalayas and 375 attacks in the Western Himalayas by leopards, between 2015 and 2018. We realised that leopards behave and adapt differently compared to other large carnivores. What we know...
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