Book Title: Rogues: Elephants, Maneaters and Poachers, 1973- 2023
Author: Susheel Gyanchand
Publisher: Storywell Books
Number of Pages: 264
ISBN: 978-9395373524
Date Published: Dec. 3, 2024
Price: INR 899
Book Excerpt
Vidya Athreya, who has done a lot of research on leopard populations in Maharashtra, says, ‘We found that when leopards are captured and let out in another area, there is a greater chance of humans being attacked by leopards occurring near the release site. This is likely because of disruption in their territoriality and stress of a new site they do not know’.
I have seen leopards trapped in cages, they are very badly traumatized; they try to break out of their cages. In the process, they break their canines and get injured on their faces and are highly traumatized.
Various researches show, some leopards travel greatdistances from the area where they are released by forestdepartments. Most of them travel in the direction fromwhere they were brought.
A Mid Day report in March 2022 says, a leopard walked25 km from the Sanjay Gandhi National Park to the Gorai-Manori beach-side town.
In Junnar (in Pune district of Maharastra), prior to translocation there were an average of four leopard attacks on humans per year. After introduction of a translocation project in the area, these leopard attacks increased to 17 per year. In spite of this evidence from research, many leopards are being trapped and translocated in many States of India.
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In Karnataka, just in one year, in 2022 the forest department trapped approximately 120 leopards and translocated them. The Human-Leopard Conflict Guidelines of the Maharastra Forest Department state, ‘Attack on people increases following the release of leopards in nearby forests’.
Today there is a lot of discussion on sterlisation of leopards. Sterlisation will be done on trapped leopards, which will make them more aggressive. Then random sterlisation will effect the genetic pool. Trapping even 50%of the leopards will be a huge task, and not very successful.
A better policy of sustainable coexistence of leopards sought to be formulated in these areas, which is outside of forests.
Excerpted with permission from Rogues: Elephants, Maneaters and Poachers, 1973-2023 by Susheel Gyanchand, published by Storywell Books.
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