The leopards of Akole - 4

CONFLICT IN JUNNAR IS DUE TO RELOCATION
Moving the leopards away from their home is the very root of the problem it seeks to solve

BY
Pankaj Sekhsaria
epaper.dna.net (Pune Edition), February 19, 2009, Page 5

To understand the serious incidents in Junnar involving big cats attacking humans, we need to go back to 2003. It was the time when the human-leopard conflict had peaked.

Leopards were being captured in cages in an effort to deal with the problem. Trapping leopards has, for long, been the main response to deal with a conflict situation. It is also one way of showing that action is indeed being taken. This becomes particularly relevant when there are human attacks and demand from the public, the politicians and the media to do something mounts. It happened in Junnar and continues to happen in a number of other places too.
The recent case of shooting down the wrong tiger in Tadoba Tiger Reserve is a classic case of wrong decisions being taken under intense media glare and political pressure.
As far as Junnar is concerned, a team of researchers that included Vidya Athreya and Pune-based veterinarian Anirudh Belsare had started working on getting a scientific understanding of the cause of the increased conflict.
A part of their effort was to mark and electronically tag these problem animals. This was done by inserting a small rice grain sized chip at the point where the animals' tails are attached to the body. The chips are uniquely numbered and can be read like a barcode is in the supermarket. Since captured leopards at that point were being released into other areas with potentially thick forests, it was hoped that the tagging exercise would help in tracking them once they were set free.

The microchip being inserted into the body of a tranquilised leopard (Pic: Vidya Athreya)

A microchip amidst grains of rice gives an idea of its size (Pic: Vidya Athreya)

A number of these tagged leopards were moved 400 km to the Yawal wildlife sanctuary in Jalgaon district like they were to other parts of the state. They were subsequently released into these forests.
Yawal's forests have always had leopards but there were never any reports of attacks on humans. There was surprise and huge fear then, when villages in and around the forests, experienced a sudden and vicious spate of leopard attacks towards the end of 2003.

The female leopard that was caught in Yaval (Pic: Vidya Athreya)

A girl that was attacked by a leopard in Yaval (Pic: Vidya Athreya)

The two-month period stretching from October 31 to December 24 saw six attacks in a region that had absolutely no such history. The attacks stopped only when trap cages were put in place and two leopards were caught. What was striking about both these leopards, one male, the other female, was that these were Junnar leopards that had been released here just a few weeks ago. The chips inserted before their release had confirmed this fact. Movement of captured leopards from the area of conflict had in fact helped move the conflict to the new areas and significantly, to where it had never existed. This was not an isolated case.

Junnar and Yaval. The star shows the point about 70 kms from Yaval towards Junnar where the released leopard was recaptured (Pic: Vidya Athreya)

It was becoming increasingly clear that the huge problem of human-leopard conflict that seemed to be spreading all over was essentially, a human created one. Athreya wrote almost immediately to the chief wildlife warden of the state that they were now certain that nearly all the cases of conflict and attack on humans that had occurred across the state from 2001 to 2004 were indeed due to the translocation that had preceded them.
Translocation which was being considered a simple answer and in use all over India, in fact, lay at the very root of the problem it sought to solve. It is only with the benefit of hindsight, we can now say we should have been more careful. Hopefully, the lessons have been learnt and the same mistakes will not be made again. There certainly are other contributory factors, some known and others that have still to be uncovered, but one key causative factor has certainly been understood. The earlier work that led to critical understanding of the problem in Junnar is an excellent example of that, as is the present effort at understanding the leopards of Akole and its behaviour.
We might not know all the causes that could push the Akole situation in a Junnar- like direction; but we can now say with confidence that we know of at least a critical few. The least we should ensure is that we don't repeat the mistakes of the past.

Tomorrow: Interview with Vidya Athreya

Box 1
Wrong tiger was killed

In a recent response to an application filed under the Right to Information Act (RTI), the Maharashtra Forest Department (FD) admitted that the wrong tiger was killed as a man-eater in the Tadoba forests in 2007.
The FD reply stated that it had acted in haste under political pressure and points to letters it received from local politicians who had threatened to agitate and even kill the man-eater themselves.
Villagers had complained in October 2007 that a tigress was killing people and cattle in and around the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve. The FD began a hunt in November but failed to capture the animal. Local politicians then turned up the heat. During a subsequent operation, the officials sighted a tiger eating its kill. The team fired 39 bullets, of which 12 had hit the mark.


Box 2
Conflict moved
A small boy was attacked in the Radhanagari WLS in Kolhapur district in February 2004 by a leopard. The leopard suffered a serious injury (broken skull) when it was assaulted by the father in defense of his child. The animal was trapped by the Forest Department and was identified by its chip as the female that had been captured in Narayangaon (Pune District) in March 2003 and released in the Radhanagari forests a year later in February 2004. The attack had occurred a day after she had been released and less than 5 km from her release site.
Similarly another individual that was caught in Sangamner and inserted with a chip was released in Mumbai’s Sanjay Gandhi National Park only to be recaptured in a Thane marriage hall a few weeks later.

Box 3
Animals Return
It is now well known that large carnivores like bears, leopards and tigers have a very strong homing tendency and they instinctively try to return to the area that they had been moved from. There are instances of the cougars, a leopard sized wild cat found on the American continent, having traveled over 400 kms back to their site of capture to resume livestock depredation. Closer home, a ‘problem leopard’ caught 120 km away and released inside the Nagarhole National Park in Karnataka in 1990 had immediately moved out of the park. Another ‘problem leopard’ captured in Gujarat and translocated 30 kms away was fitted with a radio collar. It was found to immediately return to its earlier territory and resume livestock depredation. Even the Yawal leopard had moved nearly 90 kms in the direction of Junnar from the site of her release in side the Yawal Wildlife Sanctuary before she was captured the second time
----

The other stories that are part of the series can be seen at

1) Man-Animal Row: Study holds vital clues
2) Akole's leopards have hardly jumped humans
3) How did the leopards get to Akole?
4) Conflict in Junnar is due to relocation
5) Understanding Akole's unusual phenomenon

The leopards of Akole - Part 2

This is the 2nd part of the five part series on the Leopards of Akole
---
AKOLE'S LEOPARDS HAVE HARDLY JUMPED HUMANS

THE Beasts walk past their homes to kill goats and bring up cubs in the fields, but have not attacked villagers

(The leopards of Akole - 2)
epaper.dna.com (Pune Edition), February 17, 2009

by
Pankaj Sekhsaria

Leopards are present in several parts of Akole taluka. There are regular, though fleeting sightings of the cats. Goats and dogs are regularly picked up and pugmarks are easy to spot.
But beyond the obvious, there is a complete lack of knowledge, information and understanding. Nobody really knows how many leopards are actually present, their behaviour pattern, their territory and their movements.

These questions were part of an innovative field biology project to study the leopard in Akole. Supported by Kaati Trust, Pune, the Centre for Wildlife Studies and Centre for Ecological Sciences from Bangalore and the state forest department, the study has been going on for over two years. The first key results are beginning to emerge. "The initial challenge, has been to get a definite knowhow on leopard numbers in the 300 sq km of research area," says team member Athreya. It began with rigorous surveys of the region on foot and by road to get a basic assessment of the landscape and an idea of the areas and pathways most likely to be used by the animals. Satellite imageries and Google maps were also used to fine-tune the exercise.
This was then followed by extensive collection of scats for DNA studies. The analysis at a laboratory in Bangalore will give an idea of the numbers of leopards and importantly of the composition of its prey base.
Another important part of the study has been an intensive camera trapping exercise where self-triggered cameras were deployed to get the pictures of the desired animals. Twenty pairs of cameras were installed for a period of about 15 days in an area of about 70 sq km followed by their relocation to an adjoining block for another fortnight.
The cameras were installed in carefully identified spots just before Diwali and it was around Christmas that the exercise was finally completed. A lot depended on this exercise and the research team could not have asked for a better new year's gift.

Self triggered camera traps were set up across the landscape to get photographs of the leopards

(Pic: Pankaj Sekhsaria)

The cameras had clicked pictures of 14 different leopards - five adult males, five adult females and four cubs. While a statistical analysis is now being undertaken to get a realistic estimate, it is clear from the sheer number of animals photographed that the leopard population here is indeed large.
Taken beyond the confines of the immediate context, the Akole scenario throws up critical challenges to our notion of large carnivore biology and behaviour and the very controversial and emotional subject of man-wildlife conflict.
The leopards of Akole have lived in close proximity to the humans for at least a decade. They regularly walk past their houses, pick up goats from sheds adjoining the homes and give birth and bring up their families in fields only a few meters away. Yet, there have been no attacks on humans and no strident calls for killing or removal of the big cats either.
The information and the insights being thrown up now, could not only force us to change our understanding of leopard behaviour. In understanding what is actually happening, it may equip us better to deal with problem situations that may arise in the future. A large part of what we believe is our understanding of the leopard, the causes of conflict or the solutions that we have tried to apply, have in fact been based on perceptions and opinions. Wrong decisions often therefore get taken for right reasons and the value of and need for good science becomes all the more relevant in such a context.

A typical cattle shed that can be seen in the villages of Akole Taluka. In the background are the sugarcane fields that are favoured by leopards (Pic: Pankaj Sekhsaria)


A goatherd takes his goats along. Goats and dogs form an important part of the diet of the leopards of Akole

(Pic: Pankaj Sekhsaria)

Tomorrow: How did the leopards get to Akole

Box 1
Locating Akole in a national context

While the Akole situation seems rather unprecedented and unbelievable, the reality across large parts of the Indian subcontinent actually confirms that Akole may not be an isolated case. For long we’ve believed in India that wildlife (even of the big and dangerous kind) lives only in forests and that is where they should be restricted. A whole range of wild animals like elephants, leopards, wolves, hyena not to speak of reptiles and avi-fauna are found outside areas designated as wildlife sanctuaries and national parks for their protection. Wildlife research, protection, conservation and management thinking in India, however, has continued to be limited to just these pockets. The reality clearly is far more graded and complex and this needs to be factored in.
Reports of human-leopard conflict, for instance, are regularly received from places as far apart as Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal. A significant percentage of of India’s wild elephant population too exists outside the protected area network and the same would apply in large or small measure for a number of such threatened species of flora and fauna.
There is clearly a need for a more comprehensive and wholistic perspective if conservation is to succeed. What the Akole situation is asking us to do is to urgently look outside and look at a much larger landscape.

Box 2
In their backyards

The leopard (see pic) was a female who was photographed when she came to the area to feed on a cow that was thrown by a farmer after it had died due to electrocution. This female had come with two of her cubs and a short while later, another younger female (also with two cubs) was photographed at the same spot.

Pic: Vidya Athreya

Both these females were then photographed a few days later by cameras at completely different locations, roughly four kms in opposite directions.
In another case, half an hour after a female leopard had been photographed by a camera trap, another picture was taken - this time of a woman who was headed in the same direction.
It is an excellent example of the close proximity of the leopards and humans here.
---
The other stories that are part of the series can be seen at
1) Man-Animal Row: Study holds vital clues
2) Akole's leopards have hardly jumped humans
3) How did the leopards get to Akole?
4) Conflict in Junnar is due to relocation
5) Understanding Akole's unusual phenomenon