Leopards straying into houses nothing new for Mumbai
A leopard was knocked down by a motorcyclist near Gate No. 1 of Film City at Goregaon in 2009. It later succumbed to the injuries. Express Archive A leopard was knocked down by a motorcyclist near Gate No. 1 of Film City at Goregaon in 2009. It later succumbed to the injuries. Express Archive
In 2014, a curious night-time incident between a dog and a leopard was captured on CCTV at a residential complex in Goregaon. The footage was released on YouTube and reported across all media, with grainy shots of a stray dog chasing a leopard out of a housing complex. The dog had shot to fame for holding its own before the big cat.
The incident was a rare example of a usual phenomenon around the periphery of Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) in Borivali. Mumbai has, in the past decade, witnessed a string of man-animal conflicts involving leopards entering colonies.
In 2012, a full grown leopard was seen jumping from one verandah to another of row houses in Royal Palms at Aarey colony. A few years ago, CCTV footage showing a leopard dragging a dog in two separate incidents in Mulund and Marol, Andheri (East), had gone viral.
The latest incident on Sunday of a leopard straying into the densely populated Sher-e-Punjab Colony in Andheri (East) and entering a playschool not only created panic among residents, but also refreshed memories of those who had a close encounter with the spotted animal in the city.
Padmaja Krishnan, a fashion designer and resident of Royal Palms, was reminded of the day when a leopard entered their verandah in 2012. Her daughter was three years old at the time.
“The incident instilled fear. It was the only close encounter we had with the animal. We haven’t seen a leopard in our vicinity after 2012. However, the incident brought change in the way we think. I, personally, read a lot about leopards. What choice do they have when colonies are coming up so close to their habitat? We know for sure there are leopards in and around Aarey colony. We have learnt to co-exist with them. As we share space with leopards, we obviously follow certain restrictions to keep ourselves and our children safe,” said Padmaja.
Mumbai’s leopards have generally coexisted peacefully with their human neighbours. Of the 176 reported attacks between 1991 and 2013, 84 occurred between 2002 and 2004. Nine people were killed by leopards in June 2004 alone.
As the population of Mumbai expands, its suburbs are straining against the boundaries of the SGNP, thought to be home to the highest concentration of leopards in India. The increasing population makes encounters between leopards and humans inevitable in some parts of the city. However, since 2011, the forest department has changed its way of addressing the conflict. Instead of trapping the leopards, they decided to start working with local residents.
Even though human-leopard conflicts are on the rise, Mumbai has become a case study for other cities on how to deal with such situations. Chief Conservator of Forest and Field director of SGNP, Anwar Ahmed, said, “We have been training residents around the park under our programme ‘living with leopards’ with the help of ‘Mumbaikars for SGNP’ and other NGOs and it is very successful. Has anybody heard of humans living in the 43 tribal Padas within SGNP being attacked or killed? That’s because they have learnt to live with the leopards. These animals did exist before 2009, however the close encounters and attacks started coming to light post 2009 until 2011, when it slowed down. This is due to CCTV footage going viral through social media,” said Ahmed.
Anwar said the first demand from panic-stricken people is to capture the animal. “Leopards need space to move around. Some of their corridors are getting blocked, so there is bound to be an interface,” he added.
Vidya Athreya, a biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, India, who has worked extensively with leopards in rural and urban landscapes, said, “Even though there has been a string of leopard sightings, hardly any attacks have been reported. We have been putting in a lot of efforts to create awareness. There has a been significant decline in leopard trappings since 2013. Between 2013 and 2016, not a single leopard was captured and not a single human attack was reported,” Athreya said. Currently, SGNP has the highest density of leopards with around 40 of them. Compared to this, the number of attacks has gone down drastically.
“Around 2004-05, there used to be at least 30 attacks by leopards on humans in a year. The number decreased 10 folds between 2006 and 2016. We have pointed out that in 2017, whatever attacks have taken place are by the same animal which was captured in December 2016. Trapping animals is not a solution, we therefore focused on the safety of people.”
For all the latest Mumbai News, download Indian Express App