India is home to many of the world’s wildcats and how to preserve them in a challenging world is a key issue. India has 15 of the approximately 37 cat species. More than any other single country. The country has mounted strong conservation efforts. Recently the focus has been on Indian leopards (Panthera pardus fusca).
India has about 14,000 leopards but the big cats face enormous challenges as India modernizes and urbanizes. According to The Times of India the problem is reaching Prime Minister Marendra Modi’s desk.
According to the paper:
“After multiple incidents of leopard attacks across the state, including the recent killing of a leopard that caused the death of three in Pune, conservationist group NatConnect Foundation appealed to the Prime Minister by launching an online petition that drew support from more than 630 citizens, including ecologists, educators, and biodiversity volunteers, reflecting rising public anxiety around frequent leopard encounters.”
NatConnect director B N Kumar said the root issue lay in the fragmentation of forests and disruption of traditional wildlife corridors. Expanding settlements, highways, quarrying zones, and tourism projects steadily encroached on leopard habitat, forcing the animals to move across farms, village peripheries, and even highways. “Leopards are not straying into human spaces by choice. Their landscape is shrinking around them,” Kumar said. He added that reactionary measures such as capturing or relocating leopards often worsened the situation. “
Prime Minister Modi has taken serious interest in Indian wildlife. India is home to about 70 percent of the world’s wild tigers. Leopards and other wild cats are receiving increased protection. The country has also embarked on a controversial project to reintroduce cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) into the country.
According to the paper that had an unexpected result when a leopard died after what was called an “encounter” with a cheetah. But balancing the needs of different animals is difficult. For example, India’s extraordinary success in increasing tiger numbers has had mixed impacts. Efforts to landscape wildlands to make the land more attractive to tigers backfired. The efforts made the land less favorable for leopards. Whatever policy changes the prime minister implements will be controversial.
Leopards are probably fifth among the big cats in size. Tigers (Panthera tigris ) are the largest cats followed by lions (Panthera leo). Jaguars (Panthera onca) leopards and mountain lions are the next three. Leopards and mountain lions (Puma concolor) are smaller than all but the smallest jaguars. Leopards and mountain lions overlap in size. The biggest mountain lions (puma councolor) are larger than the biggest leopard.
India has been determined to solve habitat problems even to the point of moving villages to accommodate tigers. But issues of human leopard interaction are not easily solved. Many conservationists are now questioning top Down conservation. That is where a government imposes rules. The newer style is more bottom up. It focuses on the benefits people and leopards can get from each other and builds a partnership. Partnerships between wild animals and people are most successful. One key example is eco tourism. The more tourists come to see leopards the more the local community benefits.
Another example is retraining people to hold jobs that benefit humans and animals. Snow leopards (Panthera Uncia) are benefitting in some parts of their range by a unique program. Encouraging herders to switch to raising honey is a powerful tool. The herders get a new lucrative business. Losses of domestic animals drop. Both sides benefit.