BANGALORE: Junnar in Maharashtra was like any other prosperous agricultural taluk, where improved irrigation helped farmers switch to cash crops. Cattle, goats and fowl supplemented their income.
But in 2001, a deadly phenomenon struck the region almost overnight: leopards, known to prey often on cattle, dogs and pigs here, began attacking human beings also.
Dec. 15: People living in the border villages of AP-Tamil Nadu in Kuppam mandal have been living with fear following movement of leopards close to their habitations from the nearby forest since last three weeks.
Moreover, forest range officer, Mr Mogileswar Rao, also confirmed about leopards prowling in the region.
Recent research on leopard behaviour shows capturing the problem animals and releasing them elsewhere only shifts the locale of the people-animal conflict. At first glance Akole taluka in Ahmednagar district seems like any other taluka in western Maharashtra’s sugarcane belt.
Surat: Photographs of royalty posing with a gun in hand and a dead leopard at his feet belonged to the black-and-white era of the Raj. Hunting has been banned for nearly half a century in India. But a similar scene was played out near a hamlet in south Gujarat on Monday night.
Surat: It is not known whether this was to take revenge on a man-eating leopard on prowl in Vadpada in Tapi district. Some villagers could not stop themselves from eating the bait of the leopard on Saturday while living under the fear of becoming a piece of meat for the maneater any day.
How is it possible for large carnivorous cats to live with humans in a rural area? Asking this big question are Vidya Athreya, a wildlife
biologist and Sunetro Ghosal, a social scientist.
Large carnivore conservation is akin to a multi-billion dollar riddle. Scores of researchers, activists, bureaucrats, politicians, livestock herders, and hunters each hold a clue to the solution, but cannot seem to be able to agree on how to bring it together. The large carnivores themselves are far from cooperative be it the wolf, tiger or leopard. They are constantly making a meal out of someone’s coveted animal, wild and domestic.
