Leopard Human Conflict In Uttarakhand, India

Leopard's attacks on humans have been a serious issue in Uttarakhand, India for many decades.

Not a single month goes by without newspaper headline about leopard or a tiger attacks on humans in Uttarakhand. Wildlife experts have attributed that gradual encroachment of forest and decline prays sizes are main cause of increasing human-animal conflicts in the state. Reports of human encounters with leopards and other wild species with human are a regular feature in the mountain state that is home to several wildlife reserves. The rate of human-animal conflict cases in Uttarakhand is the highest in the country. The seriousness of the menace can be gauged from the fact that leopards have been killed over 600 people and another over 3,100 people had injured in the last 17 years in Uttarakhand. According to Hindustan times, Dehradun issue June 13, 2018 on basis of state forest officials, 182 big cats, including 166 leopards and 16 tigers, as has been declared as man-eaters since the last 15 years after the formation of Uttarakhand in 2000. According to the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), more than 28 leopards lost their lives, highest number in Uttarakhand, taking the toll to 288 half of this year in country. “Man-eating” has been made infamous by renowned hunter turned naturalists like Jim Corbett (1944) after the two extreme Leopard human conflict cases occurred in British India. The first leopard, "the Leopard of Rudraprayag", known as a male maneater, killed more than 125 people in Uttarakhand and the second, the "Panar Leopard", was believed to have killed more than 400 people in Madhya Pradesh. Both were killed by hunter cum conservationist Jim Corbett.