Leopard Attacks In India - Can People Learn To Live With Leopards? @BBC

#India, #HumanWildlifeConflict, #Leopard, #BBCNaturalWorld

Facing A Patchy Future - in the survival game alongside humans

As a 10yr old, I remember leopard thoughts filling my mind while cycling through a low-hills area where I used to roam, 3-4km from home, for the thrill of freewheeling down the narrow bendy road at great speed. A leopard was caught there around that time. More surprisingly, in 2010, another leopard was caught (http://bit.ly/Lprd-KNR2010) next to the beach, another of my old cycling haunts, 8km away at Azhikode - which I re-discovered as the best location for morning beach runs, in recent years! Never thought they could reach there through densely populated countryside (From 2011 India census, the average population density of Kannur district towards the north of Kerala is 852 people per sq. km). But this latest documentary broadcast in the UK last week, gives the insights, why such things can happen, with the highly adaptable predator.  

Can people learn to live with such Animals?, is the most relevant question posed here. "To a large extent, Man-Eating Leopards are a man-made problem", said Dr Vidya Atreya who's been doing her research on leopards, around the sugar cane fields on the plains of Maharashtra!- another place you wouldn't normally expect to see leopards.

This film focusing on Leopard conflicts in India, is presented by the iconic wildlife conservationist of India, Romulus Whitaker. With footages from Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and sugarcane fields of Maharashtra, and Mumbai, where 'a stray dog a week' is enough for a leopard!.

Whitaker started off on leopard trail, after his dog was taken by one, and another of his dogs attacked, from his home on the far outskirts of Chennai in Kanchipuram dist, where he lives with his wildlife writer partner Janaki Lenin.

@BBC - Leopards 21st Century Cats :

About 85 years ago, The Man-Eater of Rudraprayag from Kumaon hills was eventually shot dead by Jim Corbett, for it was said to have killed 125 people; many pilgrims en route to Gangotri. It became famous through his book Man-Eaters of Kumaon. Even today, in this area of himalayan foothills in Uttarakhand, about 70 people are killed by leopards every year-  highest fatality rate from leopard attacks in India.
Surprisingly, the next highest fatality rate is seen in the sugarcane fields of Maharashtra, right in the densely settled plains, a 'purely human landscape' away from jungles!- the leopards there have never seen a forest in their life!!. 100 of them were captured in 3 years, to be dumped in forests upto 150miles away, only to see many return in a matter of weeks.

In Kumaon, where Lakpak, a school teacher took it upon himself to rid the nearby hills of man-eaters after 9 of his students disappeared, falling prey to leopards. Since then, in the last 10years, he has taken out 40 man-eaters with his gun!..and the story continues..

Intriguingly, in places like Rajasthan there aren't much conflicts with people- they are even 'friendly'!, other than taking their cattle.

 The increased poaching to supply body parts to SE Asia is considered one of the reasons causing increased conflicts in many places, like Kumaon.

"If an ordinary leopard sees a man, it will go away. If a man-eater sees you, it will crouch down nearby, ready to attack you. Normal leopard fear humans. Man-eaters overcome their fear"!, says Lakpak.

But the biggest surprise for me was from Mumbai- India's biggest city with 20m people, and the fourth largest metropolis in the world, has the highest density of wild leopards anywhere on earth!! 

Had read about frequent conflicts there when my workplace was just outside Sanjay Gandhi National Park boundary.. Yet, this information is almost Unbelievable!! - As is their Adaptability!

More Program info:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnnh

A leopard slinks through village fields, in Maharashtra

The 'Convicted' Man-Eater that can't be released back into the wild,
for it has developed a taste for humans and have taken many, in Maharashtra. It's been kept for some years at the enclosure run by 'Wildlife SOS', a wildlife rescue&rehabilitation NGO, which works to help reduce conflicts and builds awareness for people to live alongside wildlife.
They want to avoid creating such enclosures and sad stories for future- for people & animals.

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On a related note, here is another gripping documentary of conflicts -

The Last Man-eater (Killer Tigers of India) @National Geographic [45min].
(I did not quite like the slightly sensationalised style of presentation, yet it is insightful and extraordinary.)

Why did the Tigers of the Sunderbans acquire a taste for humans, and still are the last of the tigers in the world to regularly kill humans? 

Even after much research, No one knows for sure! 

Yet, these Indians revere Nature and the Tiger, even under severe survival conditions!

Sundarbans is a dense maize of tidal mangrove forest swamps habitat - world's largest mangrove forests (>10,000km²)