A beautiful picture of a leopard captured in India by Sabari Ganesh Sivaku, a Meesakari female leopard from Bandipur.
The Indian leopards are one of five big cats found in India, found in and around tiger habitats but not so common where tiger density is high. The spotted leopards are listed as endangered and live in the tropical rainforest to dry areas of the Indian subcontinent. Bandipur has sheltered many leopards over the years.
Leopards extensively use tree shelters for resting and hunting. In India, this elusive species of a big cat can only be spotted in mountainous rainforest tracks in the states of Sikkim, West Bengal, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and Tripura.
Here is a beautiful picture of a leopard lazing comfortably on the branch of a tree in the backdrop of a glowing sun, captured by Sabari Ganesh Sivaku, in Bandipur National Park which is located in Karnataka.
Leopard pic.twitter.com/2EvIcQzx7r
— Sabari Ganesh Sivakumar (@Sabariphotograp) February 2, 2023
Wildlife in India is battling a losing war with land conversion, deforestation, industrialization, and illegal wildlife trade. The big cats are no exception to this. India is the habitat of five big cats, namely, the Royal Bengal Tiger.
The leopard is a big cat that stays hidden from the national conservation focus on Asiatic Lions and Royal Bengal Tigers. A current estimate reveals that the leopard population in India has seen a 60% growth in the period of 4 years from 8,000 in 2014 to 12,852 in 2018. The highest leopard populations are in the state of Madhya Pradesh (3,421) followed by Karnataka (1,783) and Maharashtra (1,690).
Wildlife conflict is prominent with leopards because of their attacks on humans and livestock in absence of their natural prey in their diminished native forests. Snow leopards, the high-altitude big cats are shy but remarkable hunters. Because of their mountainous habitat range, accurate assessment of their population size is difficult.
One estimate suggests that their population size ranges between 450 to 500 individuals in the Himalayan landscape of India. Though the population of this species is dwindling due to the shrinkage of their natural mountain-forest habitat, the government of India has just started to look into their conservation plans.
According to a 2020 report, India’s first snow leopard conservation effort is about to be launched in the state of Uttarakhand. Clouded leopards are named after their distinctive markings of ellipse spots partially edged in black. Clouded leopards are seen in tropical forests at elevations of around 3,000 meters.
They have a population size of fewer than 10,000 individuals and are under imminent threat of extinction due to illegal poaching, illegal wildlife trade, and habitat destruction.
All the big cats of India are under pressure due to fragmented forests and rapidly disappearing wilderness in the name of development. Though the conservation efforts for tigers and Asiatic lions are gaining momentum, little has been done for other big cats such as the snow leopard and the clouded leopard.
There need to be fervent efforts to protect all the lives of the five big jungle cats in India.
