Study leopards’ behaviour to avoid conflict: CM

Tribune News Service

Shimla, June 10

Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today said the man-animal conflict could be avoided if awareness was spread among the people about the behaviour pattern, movement and habits of leopards.

“We have been living in proximity to wild cats since centuries and a few scary incidents of conflict between both was a natural phenomenon and sometimes becomes inevitable,” he said, speaking at a workshop on “Living with Leopards”. The workshop was organised jointly by the Forest Department, Wild Life Conservation Society and Nature Conservation Foundation.

Virbhadra said such incidents of conflict, whenever they took place, must not be sensationalised and played up by the media. “Rather there is a need to conduct mass awareness and carry out sensitisation programmes all over the state on issues of man-animal conflict,” he remarked. The Chief Minster said even in Shimla, leopards did live in proximity to human beings without causing any harm and sometimes ventured out into the town.

The Chief Minister said the government had encouraged a landscape-level conservation planning for snow leopard and its species in a manner that was conducive for its populace, fostering their livelihood. “The government will spare no effort and provide ample resources to see forests grow and wild life species protected,” he said. He said the Forest Department had done a commendable job in captive breeding of the endangered species such as Western Tragopan, Cheer Pheasant, snow leopard and Himalayan Monal.

Citing an example, he said at one point of time, 95,000 fir trees were axed annually for making apple boxes for packaging and marketing. “Our government took a stringent stand and banned the use of wooden cartons and replaced those with corrugated boxes to save the forest wealth,” he said.

Forest Minister Thakur Singh Bharmouri said leopards were found near human habitation as there was a close relation between livestock and the wild cats since ages. He said measures should be taken to avoid negative interactions and fallouts while building awareness on how to live alongside leopards.

Additional Chief Secretary, Forests, Tarun Shridhar said humans were supposed to be the guardians of wild life in parliamentary democracy. He said the process of leopard mapping conflicts was nearing completion and it was through “Trap Cameras” that 11 leopards were sighted. There has been a decline in leopard attacks on humans, barring a few pockets in Shimla, Mandi and Hamirpur districts, where 219 cases of mauling were reported in the last seven years and in all, as many as 306 odd cases of leopard attacks were reported in the state during the last 10 years. He also talked about captive breeding of endangered species and about the vulture breeding programme being carried out in the state.

Steve Winter from National Geographic, Belinda Wright from the Wild Life Protection Society of India, Yashveer Bhatnagar from the Nature Conservation Foundation and Vidya Athreya gave presentations.