Tiger Conservation Forces Leopards into Human Territory

There are a mere 3,000 tigers left in the entire world, but while conservationists scramble to save this endangered animal, they are leaving leopards to fend for themselves, forcing them into human territory where they are more at risk, according to new research.

With tiger farming and poaching being major issues - which involve the killing of tigers for their bones and pelts - conservationists have dedicated their efforts to protecting the iconic species and restoring their numbers by the year 2022.

But as tiger populations - and the territories they occupy - grow, leopards are increasingly likely to be pushed to the wayside, specifically, into areas where people live. Leopards, now fighting a battle on two fronts, have to adapt to both tigers and humans by changing their activity patterns.

Night Prowlers

According to the study, recently published in the journal Global Ecology and Conservation, these cats avoid people by become night prowlers, shifting their activity to when it's darkest.

"This study shows the complexity of coupled human and natural systems," researcher Jianguo Liu of Michigan State University said in a statement. "It also demonstrates the challenge of conserving multiple endangered species simultaneously." (Scroll to read on...)

Wild leopards, it seems, are more than capable of prowling close to human humans, according to a recent related study that tracked five of the animals in India. Hunting at night and implementing a "hit-and-run" tactic to nab food proved effective, and two of the females even gave birth to cubs during the course of the study. But while the leopards proved themselves flexible, the researchers do not recommend that this behavior continue.

There are only about 1,150 Indian leopards left since the last World Wildlife Fund (WWF) census, and contact with people trying to protect themselves - and their livestock - could result in more deaths.

Retaliatory Killings

Most areas where leopards and tigers co-exist are human-dominated. But tigers are more socially dominant felines than leopards, so they essentially get "dibs" on the areas left that are less disturbed by people, displacing leopards closer to humans. For example, leopards living in Nepal's Chitwan National Park may run into humans that live on the park's borders and rely on the forests for wood and grasses, or people that venture on nearby dirt roads and footpaths.

This issue of wildlife occupancy opens the door to human conflict, for leopards could potentially kill valuable livestock or even people, with retaliatory killings of leopards likely.

For example, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported earlier this year that a leopard in the Indian city of Meerut had caused utter panic after it wandered into a hospital, cinema, and apartment block. Another leopard even killed a 5-year-old boy in central Chhattisgarh state before it was hunted down and killed.

"Leopards are large territorial mammals, they need space to move around. Some of their corridors are getting blocked so there is bound to be an interface," Deepankar Ghosh of WWF-India said at the time.

And in a city of 3.5 million people, with tigers pushing leopards further outside their boundaries, the chance of these types of incidents arising increases.

The researchers note that their latest study in no way suggests that conservationists should cease their efforts to save tiger populations, but merely highlights the need to consider all impacts of doing so.

"We want to see increased tiger numbers - that's a great outcome from a conservation perspective. But we also need to anticipate reverberations throughout other parts of the coupled human and natural systems in which tigers are moving into," said lead author Neil Carter, "such as the ways leopards respond to their new cohabitants, and in turn how humans respond to their new cohabitants."

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