Blog Author: Nitya Satheesh
Key Takeaways:
- Leopards are a highly adaptable species that inhabit a wide variety of habitats ranging from tropical forests to semi arid areas.
- Despite this, their numbers are dwindling leading to the recategorization of their conservation status from Least Concern to Vulnerable by the IUCN
- Due to their versatile nature they are also found to live in close proximity to human dominated areas. This unfortunately can lead to frequent interactions between humans and wildlife with negative consequences.
- This study focuses on five leopards equipped with GPS collars to determine their behavior and movement patterns in human dominated areas. Two leopards that were translocated established home ranges of 42 km² and 65 km². The other leopards released close to their capture sites settled in smaller home ranges between 8 – 15 km².
- The study highlights how adaptable certain wildlife species are at occupying human dominated areas and management efforts can be focused on human wildlife coexistence in such cases.
Leopards (Panthera pardus) are found in a wide variety of habitats ranging from tropical forests, degraded forests, rocky and shrublands, and semi-arid deserts. In many parts of India, leopards are found living in proximity to human settlements. They are adaptable predators and able to tolerate humans better than other large cats. This helps them persist in areas with high human pressure provided there is availability of food. Despite their ability to thrive in such areas, leopards have been categorized as Vulnerable by the IUCN. This was due to a perceived decrease in numbers in certain parts of their range that was directly attributed to habitat fragmentation and repeated human interactions.
Ecological studies on leopards in India are very sparse and there are barely any studies conducted outside protected areas. Without basic information on leopard ecology and behavior, stakeholders and policy-makers cannot come up with effective and focused conservation efforts to minimize conflict and protect the species. Present conflict management techniques in India are often reactive and focus on capturing and moving the “problem” individuals to different areas. These decisions are often made based on a lack of understanding of how leopards use human dominated landscapes. In this first ever GPS based study of leopards based in human dominated landscapes, the authors seek to understand space use of leopards, their foraging behavior as well as their interactions with humans. The study also investigates the viability of translocation as a mitigation strategy by comparing movements of leopards that were translocated large distances with those released close to their capture site.
Five leopards were captured (four from Maharashtra, one from Himachal Pradesh) and fitted with GPS collars. Two leopards from Maharashtra: Jai and Lakshai were captured from a densely populated irrigated valley in Akole taluk in Ahmednagar district. Two leopards that were captured and translocated by the Maharashtra Forest department: Ajoba and Sita – were also collared. The last leopard to be fit with a collar, Charlotte, was captured from Shimla, in Himachal Pradesh. After collaring, locations of the leopards were regularly and intensively tracked during the sampling period.
Ajoba and Sita, the leopards that were translocated, were released about 52 km from their capture site. It was observed that Sita moved towards the site of capture while Ajoba moved away from it and that both of them moved long distances (89 and 45 kms) from their release site. The other three leopards were released approximately 10 km away from the capture site and all of them were found moving back to their capture sites immediately after release. All leopards occupied stable home ranges which implied they were resident in the areas from which they were captured. All of them were found to move longer during the night revealing a pronounced nocturnal behavior with daytime movement being restricted and only limited to areas away from human activity. Both Lakshai and Sita raised cubs during the study period. This study reinforces that the leopard is a highly versatile species and are able to live in human dominated environments. They authors also advocate against using translocation as a mitigation strategy and confirm that leopards in these landscapes are resident and not dispersed individuals. The study reveals how adaptable certain wildlife species are at occupying human dominated areas and state that management efforts can also be focused on landscapes occupied by both wildlife and humans.
You can access the original article here.
Key words: Big cats, leopards, Panthera pardus, translocation, GPS collaring, large carnivore conservation
