BENGALURU: Leopards
love cattle and goats. Sometimes they love them more than preys they find in forests such as
deer,
wild boars etc. This is what a new
study on leopards that inhibit forest mosaic landscape and tea-garden of West Bengal has proved. Researchers have found that the big cats are highly adaptable to living in human-use areas, and that their prey includes high numbers of livestock like cattle and goats.
Part of the research, the study team estimated the diet usage, prey availability and diet selection of
leopards in an area spread over 400 sq kms.
The team collected more than 120 putative leopard scats (faeces) from field and after careful examination, confirmed 70 of the samples to belong to leopards. These samples were analyzed for remains of prey items based on the hairs found in the faeces. The available prey for the leopard was estimated using field surveys (distance sampling) and statistical models. Used prey and available prey were compared to understand the selectivity in diet of the leopards.
The study found high usage of domestic prey such as cattle and goats by leopards and among wild prey, rhesus macaques were preyed upon more that their proportional availability.
This study titled “Diet Selection of Leopards (Panthera pardus) in a Human-Use Landscape in North-Eastern India”, has been done by Wildlife Conservation Society–India Program in association with National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru, Foundation of Ecological Research Advocacy and Learning, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal Forest Department.
“6 times higher”
Aritra Kshettry, the lead author of the study says, “The domestic prey available to the leopard is six times higher than wild prey in the study area. This implies that leopards are feeding on whatever is more available to them and not necessarily choosing domestic prey over wild prey.”
The anthropogenic food resource allows carnivores like leopards to persist in tea-estates and non-forested areas in the landscape. However, losses to people due to livestock kills needs to be reconciled immediately to prevent negative attitudes of local communities towards the leopards, the study suggests.
