Daily Pioneer:Moushumi Basu:Saturday, September, 03, 2011.
Random “trapping and releasing” of leopards in various States in violation of the guidelines of the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) has triggered incidents of man-leopard conflicts across the country.
In the face of the failure of the forest department to cope with such situations, there has been an alarming rise in the cases of brutal killings of this Schedule 1 species by locals.
The guidelines of the MoEF released on April this year clearly state that removal of the leopards from one location does not help in any way as they exhibit amazing homing instincts and may traverse through other densely-populated landscapes to get back to their original territories.
Apart from emphasising that capture should be the last option, the guidelines also recommend that captured leopards should be released within the immediate vicinity of their captivity that is, within their home range as research has shown that the translocation of leopards to faraway places causes further conflict. The conflict might spread to the place of translocation, or with the translocated leopard trying to return home, thereby running into conflict with humans along the way.
Figures available from Madhya Pradesh for instance have set alarm bells ringing among wildlife experts. Documents collected under RTI by Union for Development, Advocacy and Intervention, an NGO, suggest that 81 leopards had died between 2007-2011. There have been 21 deaths of the big cat in the State, during this year alone between January and July.
About a month ago, a leopard was stoned to death by villagers, after it had fallen into a well in Mandwadi village of Barwani district in the State under the full glare of the district administration, forest and police. “What is worrying is extent of the impunity with which the offenders are let off ignoring provisions of Wildlife Protection Act if it goes on like this, the leopard will disappear from MP much before tigers,” warned experts.
Dibrugarh district in Assam has also seen growing instances of human-leopard conflict in the recent months. According to a forest official as many as seven leopards have been killed in the Upper Assam district in such clashes recently. On August 18, a male leopard was brutally killed by infuriated villagers after it attacked and injured two brothers at Changmaigaon in Dibrugarh.
Wildlife expert Bibhab Talukdar explained that loss of habitat and lack of wild prey led to escalation in man-leopard conflict. “Unlike other carnivores that prefer to remain deep inside forests, the habitat of leopards lies on fringe areas and with forest cover fast shrinking, these animals often stray into human settlements in search of food,” pointed out Talukdar.
Bellary in Karnataka is also on the boil over rising cases of man-leopard conflicts. Environmentalists have protested against the forest department for ‘illegally’ translocating leopards from the region. At least half-a-dozen leopards have been transferred from Bellary and surrounding areas to Dandeli in the past six months allegedly violating the norms set for translocating leopards whose numbers are dwindling drastically, argued wildlife experts.
“The leopards from Bellary are being shifted to Dandeli National Park, which is a Western Ghats region and we are not sure whether these animals which have adapted to dry land can adapt there,” says Santosh Martin, a wildlife enthusiast.
According to Vidya Athreya,, Wild Life Biologist from Centre For Wildlife Study and Asian Nature Conservation Foundation, Bangalore, “we have been brought to believe that all wildlife is restricted to wildlife sanctuaries and tiger reserves. But actually these areas comprise only 5 per cent of the country’s total landed area”, she pointed out. The need of the hour thus according to her is a long term policy to deal with these issues as leopards coming out in human habitations to take livestock and dogs, stressed Athreya.
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