Leopard sightings across cities show the problem is us, not them

Mumbai and Los Angeles have always had them — big cats living in wilderness bordering densely populated urban areas — but in recent years, leopards (which are the big cats in Mumbai; Los Angeles has mountain lions) are being spotted in more cities in India.

- Sukanya Datta, Jasjeev Gandhiok and Leena Dhankhar

 

The leopard, which can coexist with humans as Mumbai’s experience has shown, abandoned now-urban landscapes due to extensive hunting till late 1960s, which resulted in wildlife conservationists saying that their population had fallen, even though they were not counted. However, conservation efforts since the enactment of Wildlife Protection Act (WPA), 1972, and more since 2008, when tiger landscapes received more protection through the amended WPA, have seen the leopard population climb to an estimated 12,852 in 2022 as compared to 7,910 in 2014, according to estimation studies of five major forest landscapes of India by the National Tiger Conservation Authority.

The reason for their more frequent sightings is simply India’s growing urban habitations. For instance, Gurugram and Delhi have grown into the Aravallis . Meanwhile, protected areas have become more crowded with big cats, although leopards have always been more urban and social than people think. Pranav Chanchani, lead species specialist at WWF-India, said it’s the leopard’s wide dietary repertoire which allows it to exist in semi-urban to urban spaces. “While the species occurs extensively across forests in India, leopards are also abundant along the margins of forests, and in secondary habitats comprising of scrublands, agricultural areas, degraded forests or patchy wilderness areas.”

And when cities grow into these areas, people get new and surprising neighbours.