The Indian leopard is commonly referred as guldar and because of the spots on its body colloquially called tendua, baghera, sona cheeta and in vernacular Marathi karda. They are being exterminated nationally. Figures speak for themselves. From 1994 to 2010 a total of 2,845 cases of poaching have been registered. In the current year, a total of 136 cases have been registered nationally, out of which 51 are in Uttarakhand alone.
The current scheme of wildlife protection strategy is not working in favour of leopards, as the figures say it all. Currently, the emphasis is on protecting the tiger being on the top of the food chain, thus other animals get incidental protection.
Similarly, in the herbivorous category the emphasis is on the elephant. In the case of the leopard there is a mindset against the animal, because of its behavioral tendencies. While the tiger is reclusive and stays away from habitation, and the elephant is in direct man-animal conflict, has a religious connotation symbolising Lord Ganesh, social prejudices work against the leopard.
The leopard is one of the most magnificent and beautiful animals to watch and is commonly associated with being exceedingly cunning because of its size. Smaller than the other bigger cats, like Asiatic Loin and the Royal Bengal Tiger it uses a combination of brain and brawn to survive. Very versatile it operates in close vicinity to humans and survives by being canny. It thus is bearing the brunt of man wrath, as it operates both in thick jungle as also close to human habitation whenever there is a shortage of prey base. This is leading to increased case of man-animal conflict. There is a need for affirmative action to change mindset and stop persecution of this fine animal.
The average leopard has an elongated and extremely muscular body. Its head is larger than the body and has small ears with broad paws. They have a distinct coat which in tropical regions is short and in colder climate is thicker with denser fur. The leopard's coat has a background colour of pale cream-yellow on its underside that darkens slightly to an orange-brown on its back. The throat, belly chest and the inside of the limbs are white, while the head, along with the rest of the body has thick black spots and the belly has larger black spots. They have black spots all over and a long tail roughly three-feet in length; region and habitat also affect appearance.
Stories about leopard abound in the hilly regions. These animals are very good at stalking. A leopard can be just a couple of metres from a person yet one may not realise its presence. The hills have many stories of leopard stalking in close vicinity of domestic animals realised afterwards by tell tale signs of dropped hair or pug marks. One has seen a leopard climb up a tree and than descend down the tree, just like a cat. Contrary to popular belief, the leopard is not a nocturnal animal. It only hunts at night when under pressure from humans and some do turn man-eaters, which makes them difficult to track and kill as they are cunning animals.
The leopard is specifically in man-animal conflict because of expansion of agricultural land and encroachment by humans and stories about them were not uncommon during our childhood days. A feature in the hills was that all dogs at night had a thick metallic spiked collar to protect them from leopards, as they generally attack on the neck. Our parents and grandparents were more tolerant towards wild animals and have handed us a rich legacy. What is the legacy we intend to hand over to our children is the moot question?
The forest department is constantly giving sanctions to shoot leopards. Have we ever seen any awareness programme about leopards and its importance in the food chain? There is a need to protect them with greater energy than what is being done or else like the Indian cheetah these too will become extinct in a couple of years at the rate they are being killed for their pelts and also because of man-animal conflict.
