Mysore: Vidya Athreya, the conservation biologist, speaking at the Sri Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens, Mysore organized  conservation speak on ‘ leopards ecology and Leopard –  Human conflict in Mysore region and other parts of India’,  said that conflict between Leopards and humans cannot be resolved by translocation

The Mysore zoo had invited Vidya Athreya a conservation Biologist and Sanjay Gubbi,  Panthera’s Tiger Programme  coordinator  to share their experiences and recent research findings on Leopard ecology, leopard human conflict and its Management as there were a  growing number of incidents involving leopard deaths and attacks on human and livestock in the Mysore region.

Vidya Athreya shared her experience of being a conservation Biologist and how to prevent leopard attacks on humans and livestock. She opined that, trapping the animals is not a good idea to  prevent these accidents because in her surveys and experience, these animals will  return to old territories if they are translocated.

“Good communication and informed awareness in people living close to their habitats  is the best option to avoid these accidents”.  Media should be proactive in this regard”, she said.

 Ms. Athreya made a presentation on the life of leopards and their movements and added that scientists should do research on wild life and give scientific details on the wild life like leopards and other animals to the public.

Sanjay Gubbi shared his 25 years of experience as a wild life observer and conservation Biologist.  What the audience felt especially interesting is his field experiences in saving trapped leopards and repatriating them to their natural habitats in the forest.

He said “As a nature lover , I know that leopards don’t have intention of harming humans and livestock, we humans have disturbed  nature and entered the territory of wildlife resulting incidents of attack on humans”. “In 6 years,  9 deaths have  been registered due  to leopard attack, so people should be educated and improve their knowledge on wild life”.

He explained as to how leopards are monitored by tying radio collars and placing cameras in their territories at Bhadravathi, Maddur, Bangalore Urban and Kaveri Wild life Sanctuaries and added that  57% of Male and 43% of Female leopards are caught in most operations.

He maintained that leopard attacks on humans and livestock is not only an issue for the victims and forest department, its social and political issue. He said sadly, “the budget allotted to the forest department for conservation is very less and the department has very little equipment. So forest department is forced to use average equipment in rescue operations”.

“The Government does not want to invest in wild life conservation as it takes nearly 20 to 30 thousand rupees to save one leopard”, he added

He reiterated that , the awareness of common people about Leopards , their habits and habitats, is very  important because, he said, he had the experience of facing many serious problems with the public when he had been to a recent rescue operation in Hassan Dist.

Explaining the difficulties that the conservation movement is facing , he said, “The environment ministry has released draft guidelines regarding critical wildlife habitats and other issues of wildlife but many conservation biologists and forest officers have their own perceptions regarding the draft”.

On the role of the media, he said, “Media should give proper and right information to the people and should not exaggerate the scene of attacks because recently media has mislead people, stating that the public had killed a  leopard and hung it on a tree, when the reality of the picture in circulation,  was  the dead leopard being brought down from the tree.  In fact, the postmortem reports said zinc elements were found in the stomach of the dead Leopard and that may have been cause to death”.

Vidya Athreya, Sanjay Gubbi and  B P Ravi Executive Director of Mysore Zoo also interacted with the gathering and clarified their doubts  with respect to leopards and wildlife.

Later,  Dr Suresh Kumar, Assistant Director Mysore Zoo described his very interesting experience of the recent 9 day  transportation of a Male Giraffe from Mysore to Patna.

All in all,  it was a very enlightening experience for those present at the meet.