Inhabiting terra incognita: Two-decadal patterns of negative human-leopard interactions in human-dominating landscape of Maharashtra, India

• Main Authors: Kumar Ankit, Rucha Ghanekar, Bhumika Morey, Indranil Mondal, Vivek Khandekar, Jayramegowda R, Samrat Mondol, Parag Nigam, Bilal Habib
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2021-09-01
• Series: Global Ecology and Conservation
• Subjects: Negative human-leopard interactions; Conflict hot spots; Junnar; Livestock damages
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351989421002900

Globally, the increasing human population has resulted in land use conversions and caused habitat loss to large carnivores leading to their presence in human-dominated landscapes. Because of the shared resources in human-dominated landscape, the interactions between the human and carnivore often becomes negative which becomes a challenging aspect to conservation practitioners. Mitigating these negative interactions has become a priority for wildlife managers to conserve large carnivores, human lives, and livelihoods. Moreover, it poses a challenge to execute effective mitigation measures, especially in areas where these interactions are persistent. Junnar Forest Division in western Maharashtra has a history of livestock damages and attacks on humans by leopard, which may be attributed to change in land use patterns in the past couple of decades assisted by the development of linear infrastructure. In this study we used machine learning to understand the spatio-temporal dynamics of the negative interactions of two decades (1999–2018) using compensation records. We found a significant increase in reporting of cases, especially livestock depredation after the year 2014, with annual depredation cases rising from 66/year to 599/year. A total of 34 human deaths (~1.79/year) and 99 human injuries (~5.21/year) due to leopard attacks were also recorded. Our analysis revealed different categories and clusters of negative human-leopard interactions hot spots in the landscape across the decades. The different categories of hot spots will be crucial for helping in the management interventions and site-specific approaches in the targeted areas for implementing effective mitigation strategies to minimize the chances of negative human leopard interactions in the landscape.