Leopard dependence on domestic animals 695


TABLE 1 Mean weight, per cent frequency, mass consumed per scat, relative biomass consumed and relative per cent of prey, in decreasing order of frequency, for each of the 12 prey taxa recorded in the 132 scat samples of the leopard Panthera pardus fusca.


Taxon


Domestic dog Canis lupus familiaris Domestic goat Capra aegagrus hircus Domestic cattle (calf) Bos taurus Domestic cat Felis catus


Indian grey mongoose Herpestes edwardsii Rodents (Rodentia)


Nilgai Boselaphus tragocamelus Hare Lepus nigricollis


Domestic pig Sus scrofa domesticus Indian civet Viverricula indica Langur Semnopithecus entellus Rhesus macaque Macaca mulatta


Weight1 (kg) 18.00


25.00 40.00 2.00 2.00 0.10


140.00 2.10


21.00 0.08 8.00 7.00


Frequency (%) 44.0


16.0 15.0 13.0 3.0 3.0 2.2 1.5 1.5 1.5 0.7 0.7


Y2 (kg) 8.28


10.73 15.98 2.68 2.68 2.01


50.98 2.71 9.33 2.01 4.78 4.43


D2 (kg) 2.96


1.50 2.14 0.30 0.05 0.05 0.76 0.02 0.09 0.02 0.02 0.02


1From Karanth & Sunquist (1995), Biswas & Sankar (2002), Sankar & Johnsingh (2002) and Andheria et al. (2007). 2Y, mass of prey consumed per scat; D, relative biomass; E, relative per cent of each prey species consumed (see text for further details).


E2 (%) 37.16


18.82 26.93 3.84 0.69 0.63 9.64 0.35 1.20 0.25 0.28 0.25


PLATE 1 Leopard Panthera pardus fusca preying on a domestic dog that strayed into the boundaries of Jhalana Reserve Forest. Photo: Devam Shah.


(Inskip & Zimmermann, 2009). Studies have therefore focused on so-called human–felid conflict (Inskip & Zimmermann, 2009). Dependence of felids on domestic livestock has rarely been observed, however; domestic live- stock usually contribute only a small proportion of the biomass consumed by felids (Athreya et al., 2014). In urban landscapes the biomass of domestic animals is usually high and usually exceeds that of wild prey in the neighbouring forests (Schaller, 1983). So, if domestic animals lack anti- predatory behaviour, they are more susceptible to attacks (Diamond, 2002). Jhalana Reserve Forest is surrounded by urban and rural areas with c. 4 million inhabitants (World Population Review, 2020). People living in the surrounding neighbourhoods and villages practice traditional livelihood professions such as livestock farming. Goats and the calves of cattle are available as leopard prey along with domestic dogs, cats and pigs. An estimated population of 36,580 domestic dogs was documented in a 2011 survey in Jaipur (Hiby et al., 2011). This is a sizeable source of potential prey for


the leopards. Hence, it is unsurprising that leopards move between the protected area and human habitat, despite the 5 m high barrier built around Jhalana to separate it from the city of Jaipur (Fig. 1). There are no data available on the densities or numbers of the leopards’ wild prey species in Jhalana Reserve Forest. There are, however, data on the vac- cination and sterilization of feral domestic dogs undertaken for the past 2 decades by the Help in Suffering Foundation, Jaipur (J. Reece, pers comm., 2019): amean of c. 7,500 rabies inoculations were conducted annually over the past 21 years, to protect residents in the case of bites from feral dogs. Previous studies have shown that the availability of a large number of domestic animals in rural and urban areas facil- itates the survival of leopards near human habitats (Athreya et al., 2004; Kshettry et al., 2018). Persistence of leopard po- pulations in human-dominated habitats beyond protected areas is dependent on a stable and abundant domestic prey base (Athreya et al., 2013). The Mao Tau diversity estimator indicated that 90–100


scat samples sufficed to give a representative sample of the species included in the diet of the leopards (Fig. 3). Biswas & Sankar (2002) considered that a minimum of 60 scats needed to be analysed to examine the prey base of tigers. Scat analysis substantiated our hypothesis that the pre-


dominant prey of leopards in Jhalana Reserve Forest are do- mestic animals, presumably from the neighbouring city and villages. Our results corroborate the results of Daniel (2009) and demonstrate that dogs are amajor food resource for leop- ards in the Reserve (Plate 1). Scat analysis from the states of Maharashtra and Jammu and Kashmir have also reported the importance of dogs as prey for leopards (Edgaonkar & Chellam, 2002; Shah et al., 2009). InWest Bengal, however, livestock (cattle and goats; 48%) predominated in the diet of leopards (Kshettry et al., 2018), whereas cattle and goats com- prised 31% of the diet in Jhalana Reserve Forest. In Ayubia


Oryx, 2021, 55(5), 692–698 © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605319001145


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