Living with leopards: an assessment of conflict and people's attitudes towards the common leopard Panthera pardus in a protected area in the Indian Himalayan region MUZAF F A R A. KICHLOO* 1 ,ASH A SOHIL 2 and NEE RAJ SHARMA3
Abstract Protected areas are important for wildlife con- servation but they are also used by many local communities for livelihood activities. This often leads to conflicts and erodes the tolerance of local people for wildlife, particularly towards carnivores that prey on livestock. To enhance con- servation success and improve the social carrying capacity of carnivores, it is essential to understand the factors influencing such conflicts and the attitudes of people inter- acting with carnivores. We used structured questionnaire surveys to assess the extent of livestock mortality and com- munity responses to common leopards Panthera pardus in Kishtwar National Park, a relatively understudied pro- tected area in the Greater Himalayan region of India. The mountainous Park and its surroundings have historically served as a haven for the local agro-pastoralists and tran- shumant pastoralists, resulting in complex human–wildlife interactions across the larger landscape. Our results showed that leopards were responsible for high livestock depreda- tion (71 incidents in 2 years), and households with larger livestock holdings experienced a higher predation rate compared to those with smaller livestock holdings. An ordinal logistic regression model revealed that respondents’ age and period of activity in the Park significantly influ- enced their opinions regarding leopards. Large losses suffered by otherwise low-income households resulted in more negative attitudes towards these predators. Our study indicates that financial compensation for livestock losses is a key factor in improving human–leopard coexis- tence. A comprehensive, cross-sector collaborative approach would help to improve conflict resolution and promote favourable attitudes towards these predators.
Keywords Conflict management, human–wildlife conflict, Kishtwar National Park, livestock depredation, question- naire approach, transhumant pastoralists
*Corresponding author,
omar.mzfr@
gmail.com 1Department of Environmental Sciences, Government Degree College, Thathri,
Jammu and Kashmir, India 2Department of Environmental Sciences,GovernmentDegree College,Udhampur,
Jammu and Kashmir, India 3Institute of Mountain Environment, University of Jammu, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir, India
Received 15 November 2022. Revision requested 14 March 2023. Accepted 18 August 2023. First published online 14 December 2023.
The supplementary material for this article is available at
doi.org/10.1017/S0030605323001278
Introduction P
rotected areas, where the conservation of wildlife in- cluding predators is a top priority, are used by many
local communities for their livelihoods. Because of growing rural populations in and around wildlife habitats, people and carnivores are increasingly sharing habitats and activity periods (Linnell et al., 2002; Jhala, 2003). Carnivores often visit human-dominated landscapes to take advantage of the available cover, easy prey availability and food provi- sioning by people (Athreya et al., 2015; Suryawanshi et al., 2017; Naha et al., 2018). Forest fragmentation, habitat het- erogeneity (Acharya et al., 2017) and a lack of natural prey (Gurung et al., 2008; Goodrich, 2010) are all significant pre- dictors of predation attempts by carnivores. This results in negative human–carnivore interactions (Seoraj & Pillay, 2017; Wilkinson et al., 2020), especially in multi-use land- scapes, with serious consequences (Bombieri et al., 2023) including potential human injury and death (Penteriani et al., 2016, 2017; Bombieri et al., 2018). To effectively man- age human–carnivore coexistence under various conditions, a deeper understanding of the factors driving negative in- teractions is necessary (Chapron et al., 2014;Penterianietal., 2017; Bombieri et al., 2018). The compromised livelihoods of marginalized com-
munities erode human tolerance for wildlife, particularly towards carnivores that prey on livestock (Mishra, 1997; Treves & Karanth, 2003; Graham et al., 2005; Inskip et al., 2016). Globally, a significant proportion of large felid mortality is a result of human–carnivore conflict (Inskip & Zimmermann, 2009). The killing of carnivores in retali- ation for livestock predation is amongst the most serious, pervasive and direct threats to carnivores (Inskip et al., 2014) and has long-term consequences for their con- servation (Treves, 2009). To ensure sustainable livestock production in pastoral communities and the continued survival of carnivore populations, mitigation of conflicts involving livestock depredation is key (Khanal et al., 2020). Although many studies have focused on various aspects of the ecology of large mammals in the protected areas of
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. Oryx, 2024, 58(2), 202–209 © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605323001278
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