When Aasha gave birth to three cubs in one of the enclosures of Kuno national park - there was good news and bad news. The good news is that this is the second litter of cheetah on Indian soil after Siyaya, another Namibia cheetah, gave birth to four cubs in March 2023 and that the animal seems to have acclimatized further in India conditions. Birth in captivity will also enhance their chances of survival. The three newborns from Aasha have also increased the number of cheetahs in India. The bad news is that like Siyaya's cubs, they too are born within the confines of a boma and would not get the environmental conditions required to survive in the wild. They would also be reared up by Aasha in the enclosure -safe from predators like leopards. But what does this mean? Kuno Awaits Cheetah Birth in Open Forest Cheetahs were translocated to India with a purpose. The Cheetah action plan envisages saving, conserving and developing India's grasslands .The reason for choosing cheet
Beware, numbers can always be deceptive. After increasing tiger numbers, the government released another report with “ good news” of increasing leopard (Panthera pardus) figures. “The population of leopards has increased by 60% as compared to 2014 survey,” the ‘Status of Leopard in India 2018’ report, said . India now has 12,852 leopards as compared to the previous estimate which was conducted in 2014.MadhyaPradesh recorded the largest number of 3,421 leopards followed by , 1783 in Karnataka and 1690 in Maharashtra. “ Increase in Tiger, Lion and Leopards population over the last few years is a testimony to fledgling wildlife and biodiversity,” Union minister for Environment ,forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar was quick to announce on Twitter. Amidst the celebrations, the minister missed a point completely - a recent genetic study in India has found that leopards have experienced a possible human induced 75-90% population decline in the last 120-200 years. Despite decreasing numbers and range, their ubiquitous presence across human habitations leads to misconceptions regarding their current abundance. It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because leopard populations are threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, all this is carried in the same report. The habitat loss continues, now at a faster pace, Mr. Minister . Habitat loss and human –leopard conflict are the causes of grave concern. Every day, there are reports of leopards stoned to death or caged after rescued from an angry crowd.
Also read:Problem Of Plenty: Gir Lions Turn Scavengers AsDeadly Virus Stares
Most Cases of Conflict from Shivalik Hills and Central India
Leopards are widely distributed species and in comparison to
other large carnivores have been able to survive better in an increasingly
human dominated landscape, largely due to it's adaptable behaviour and due to protection.
Leopards serve as apex predators in most of the forested landscapes in India,
beyond the realm of tiger and lion. While leopards have been persecuted
historically, we find them evoking a negative response in large parts of
country due to negative interactions with humans all the more today, the report
highlights . Despite their widespread distribution, leopard habitats are being
increasingly fragmented, and such small fragmented areas with low wild prey
densities cannot harbour a sizable population of leopards. This has resulted in
leopards venturing out into human- dominated landscapes and ending up in
conflicts. Intense conflicts are mostly reported from the hills of
Shivalik-Terai landscape and parts of Central India, the report warns. The forests
of Central Indian landscape harbour the largest population of leopards in it's
fragmented forest patches. While genetic data and population data suggest that
leopard populations across is continuous, there is an increasing need for
corridor connectivity, and improvement of habitat, to reduce interface with
humans and thereby reducing the chance of conflict. With leopards venturing out
into human habitations more often, developmental projects need appropriate
mitigation measures and greener technology to sustain not only leopards, but
also other carnivores and biodiversity in general. We are at that juncture
where socio-economic development and conservation are at a critical point. It
is now important, more than ever, to incorporate and implement a model of
adaptive management of Protected Areas which are still in poor condition and can be improved,
and explore possible models for coexistence of large carnivores with humans..
Indian Leopards are Genetically Diverse
Pic credit: Status Of Leopards In India, 2018
The good thing about India leopards is that they are “not
strictly genetically structured, as
opposed to tiger populations which show structuring”. Both these
analyses reveal that leopard populations across the country are not very
distinctly genetically structured, with only distance playing a role in
differentiating populations. Genetic structure of leopards revealed structuring that was evidence of
isolation by distance. Across landscapes gene flow was evident .Through these
results, it is interesting to note that while tigers across the same space are
genetically structured, leopard populations are genetically diverse, with
genetic structure seemingly driven only by separation in space.
Massive Exercise to Capture the Elusive Big Cat
Pic credit: Status Of Leopards In India, 2018
Tigers have unique
stripes.Leopards have rosette shaped markings over their body. Rudyard Kipling
suggested that it was because the leopard moved to an environment "full of
trees and bushes and stripy, speckly, patchy-blatchy shadows". But
scientists at the University of Bristol found
that “Cats living in dense
habitats, in the trees, and active at low light levels, are the most likely to
be patterned, especially with particularly irregular or complex patterns. This
suggests that detailed aspects of patterning evolve for camouflage”. For
the leopard population estimates, camera
traps were placed at 26,838 locations spread across 141
sites for mark recapture analysis .Camera traps were systematically distributed
within the sampling area by superimposing 2 square km grid and deploying at least one
pair of cameras A total of 51,337
leopard photographs were obtained from camera
traps. Software called ExtractCompare designed to automatically identify
individual animals from natural markings was used to identify individual animal
Also read: Protect This Wildlife Corridor To Save The Ganges
Maximum number of leopards was reported from Central India and Eastern Ghats . comprising the jungles of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh,Chattisgarh, Jharkhand,Odisha, Maharashtra and Telengana.Leopards in North India are distributed from Trans-Himalayas to Gangetic plains, but the current leopards’ assessment was limited to an altitude of 2,600 m in this landscape, where leopard signs were distributed across the forested areas of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and parts of Bihar. Leopards were reported from the higher reaches of Himalayas in Nainital and Champawat.In the Western Ghats Leopard presence were recorded in the forested areas of Western Ghats, Nilgiris, and sporadically recorded across much of the dry forests of Central Karnataka . In the NorthEast region and Brahmputra flood plains ,the Leopards are distributed widely in the North Eastern landscape from high altitude of Eastern Himalayas to the forests adjacent to tea gardens in the flood plains but due to sampling inadequacy, the leopard population was estimated only from the camera trapped sites of Northern West Bengal, Manas and Nameri tiger reserves of Assam and southern valley of Pakke tiger reserve of Arunachal Pradesh.
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