Leopards in India: India records the highest leopard mortality rate in 2018

Weather.com

Leopards in India are rare. They are numbered. In fact, here’s a correction. There are severely numbered. The number of leopards in India, at present, is about the same quantity as one finds morally upright government officers, honest cops or let’s say, the number of villages with full electricity supply.

It’s a bit of a dreamy scenario right- surreal of sorts?

So let’s focus the question first up. What is the total number of leopards in India? Well, this worrying statistic actually becomes a predicament of sorts, when one considers the word of the most eminent authority of them all: the Wildlife Protection Society of India.

According to the Wildlife Protection Society of India, India experienced the highest leopard mortality rate in 2018. In case, you were wondering what this stat was, think no more and drop conjectures.

At 460, India, according to the latest reports has just registered the highest leopard mortality in 2018.

One wonders, what all is wrong and at how many levels given the safety of these big wild cats in India that there were 460 deaths? Does that not tell us a thing or two about just how defunct is India’s preparation where it comes to protecting or safeguarding a regale creature?

In the last four years, at 460, India has registered the highest number where the leopard mortality rate is concerned. But this leads to a question.

Will this information, made available by the Wildlife Protection of Society forewarn the ill-doers; the nexus that exists between state governments and the corrupt responsible for poaching, butchering the animals about holding back?

One cannot say with any uncertainty.

The website, weather.com focused on this developing story and shared the following:

“The highest leopard mortality rate was recorded in Uttarakhand with 93 deaths. This is followed by Maharashtra (90), Rajasthan (46), Madhya Pradesh (37), Uttar Pradesh (27), Karnataka (24), and Himachal Pradesh (23) among others,” WPSI programme coordinator Tito Joseph told IANS.

But having said that, where 460 leopards died in 2018, it doesn’t mean that the situation in 2017 was any better. At least 431 leopards passed away that year. In 2016, 450 big cats died, of which 127 were poached. If that’s not a terrible number, then one wonders, what might ever be?

The aforementioned website also shared the following in regards to this concerning story.

“Poaching, road accidents, and human-animal conflict are the main reasons for this increased mortality rate. In 2018 only, 29 leopards were killed by villagers and eight leopards considered to be maneaters were killed by the forest department workers,” he said.

Earlier this year, the Union Minister for Environment had shared that the matter was sensitive and was being dealt with cohesively. But one doesn’t quite understand, truth be told, whether anything’s been really done to ensure that this fantastic big wild cat can be actually preserved and safeguarded or not.

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