Leopard Attack in Mumbai, India

(Dutta 2011)

I am interested in biodiversity. I am saddened and enraged about how early pioneers slaughtered all the large predators, for the safety of human settling and industry development. In addition I am interested in ecology and how removal of species at specific trophic levels, especially high levels, throws off the balance of an ecosystem. In my lifetime I want to study wildlife, not sure how yet, but I recently read a news article about a fatal leopard attack on a 50 year old woman.  I also read the corresponding research paper. The article was “Big cats in our Backyards: Persistence of Large Carnivores in a Human Dominated Landscape of India” by V Athreya et al. The following is a summary of the research that Athreya et al performed.                                                                           

            High profile predatory animals have long played roles in world-wide focused conservational research.  Generally they are considered flagship species (raising a species’ profile for protection) or umbrella species (species protection indirectly protects many others in a community).  Preserving these species historically has been compacted to designating wildlife protected areas (PA), where human land-use is greatly limited.  This focus has been arguably beneficial for densely populated tropical areas such as India.  There are few PAs in India with dense human populations between them.  Evidence has shown that carnivores have adapted to an array of habitats modified by humans rarely involving lethal interactions.  The goal of this study was to assess the tolerance limit of carnivores with wide ranges that interface with large human densities when residing outside of their PAs in India.  Increasingly, we are aware that animals such as wolves and mountain lions live within dense human-populations.  This paper aimed to stimulate our understanding of wild carnivore community structures in urban areas and considering the inclusion of human-dominated landscapes as PAs.

            This study was performed at Akole Tehsil of the Ahnednagar district of Western Maharashtra in India (figure 1).  Akole Tehsil houses 191 villages with a density of 177 people/km² and the study covered 179km².  About 80% of the population is rural with farming as the main sustenance while 15% of land is protected.  The nearest sanctuary was located 18km from the study area.  Within the study area 37 camera traps (remote controlled cameras with motion or infrared sensors) were set up approximately 1.5 km in areas inhabited commonly by leopards, usually on human trails.  The cameras were used at night due to large daytime human and cattle traffic.  Individual leopard and hyenas were identified by fur marking patterns.  To estimate their densities, the study used capture-recapture (CR) sampling and Spatially explicit capture-recapture (SECR) (Athreya 2013).  CR measures an initial population sample which is compared to a second independent sample, the second is assumed to be similar to the first.  SECR sampling is more accurate.  It uses a mathematical function taking into account that a large range animal has a decreasing probability of being detected by camera when it’s further away from the center of its range. 

(Athreya 2013)

            Over 1110 camera trap nights, 4124 exposures of 13 species where documented.  In decreasing order, humans were the most common, then domestic cats, leopards, and striped hyenas (table 1). Eighty-one photos of leopards with five individual males and 6 distinct females were obtained.  Using CR and SECR, the study revealed a leopard density of 6.4±0.78/100km² and a hyena density of 9±3.35/100km² over a landscape area of 187.5km² (Athreya 2013).

(Athreya 2013)

            There was clear evidence from cubs and urine markings in the study are that populations of leopards and hyenas considered this their habitat.  This overturns the thought that leopards in human-dense places are strays.  This aspect of carnivores’ ability to adapt to various habitats should be considered when studying a species and its community perseverance.  Further in ecological prospect, leopards as flagship species can help their conservation.  However, when sharing space in human-modified habitats, the carrying capacity socially limited, based on human tolerance towards carnivorous predators.  The leopards preyed mostly on domestic dogs and abundant livestock, whereas in PAs wild deer was the prey.  Most other countries remove (generally lethally) predators that kill livestock.  India does not kill because of its socio-cultural acceptance of all life forms including potentially dangerous animals.  This requires humans to readily share human-use landscapes outside of PAs.  Social and ecological scientific research should consider living with carnivores as flagship species, an evolving form of conservation management (Athreya 2013).