Pro-active measures mooted to mitigate human-animal conflicts

Greater public awareness on animal behaviour, the protocol to handle conflict situations and pro-active initiatives to help people reduce their losses are some of the measures mooted to mitigate man-animal conflicts.

Vidya Athreya, Senior Research Fellow, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) India Programme, who is studying leopards, said here on Thursday that some of these measures could help people reduce their losses while helping to save the wild cats as well.

She was speaking at a workshop on human-animal interactions and the resulting conflicts, organised by WCS in collaboration with the Mysore District Journalists’ Association.

Building effective pens or sheds to protect livestock from predators would go a long way in mitigating losses while reducing conflicts, said Ms. Athreya.

In rural areas with leopard population, if the farmers have to go to fields at night, it was best to go in groups or by making noise, lest the leopard mistake them for prey.

She said that though translocation of leopards has been adopted by the Forest Department, it has not worked as the space left vacant by the animals will be occupied by another cat or the conflict will be transferred to another region. Incidentally, about 20 leopards have been trapped, caged and released into the forests in Mysuru region in the last two years but it is not clear whether the problem has abated. But it is done to soothe the frayed nerves of the local community, who otherwise, may indulge in revenge killings.

Citing from her own research in Maharashtra, she said that there has never been a human death due to leopard attack though there may have been accidental injury as leopards tend to shy away from humans.

The conflict however was real as leopards outside national parks and wildlife sanctuaries preyed on domestic animals and almost 40 per cent of its diet consisted of dogs.