Mumbai suburbs living in fear of silent predator
If it hadn’t been for the fearless actions of people in Aarey Colony one September evening, four-yearold Ayush Yadav could have died. Hearing screams, locals rushed from their homes and used sticks to attack an adult leopard that was attempting to drag the boy into the night.
“Another few seconds and I would have lost my only child,” said Aarti Yadav, Ayush’s mother.
The attack is one of eight reported in Mumbai’s north-western suburbs over the past month alone, sparking a debate on the future of the city’s leopard population and spotlighting India’s growing problem with animalhuman conflict.
Approximately 50 leopards live in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) in the north of the city. Although walled in, the expert climbers are often spotted in densely-populated surrounding neighbourhoods looking for food – usually choosing street dogs as prey.
The park plays an essential role in preserving Mumbai’s historic leopard population, which outdates human settlements.
A 2018 Indian government report found there are 12,852 of the big cats left nationwide, a reduction of 90 per cent since the 1990s, due to poaching and habitat destruction.
“The forests of the SGNP provide an ideal habitat. It has connectivity with adjoining forests that allows leopards to migrate without disturbances,” says Dr Bivash Pandav, of the Bombay Natural History Society.
In 2002, there were 25 reported incidents, although this was an anomaly, as an influx of new leopards
from surrounding forests led to competition for prey in the SGNP.
After a panel was set up, involving politicians, conservationists and police, attacks soon stopped, attributed in part to an improved prey base in SNGP. Only a handful of incidents have since been recorded, all of which have been blamed on one particularly aggressive leopard in 2017.
The Mumbai authorities have again
blamed this month’s attacks on one leopard but it remains at large and social media is fuelling panic.
CCTV videos – one of a 69-year-old woman fighting off a leopard with a stick and another of a leopard leaping at two people on a speeding motorbike – have been widely circulated. Anger is rising among residents, many of whom demand the leopards are moved to a park away from residential areas.
Others say the attacks could have been avoided had warnings from residents of more regular sightings closer to their homes been heeded, and had people been prevented from erecting illegal hotels, office blocks and housing on the big cats’ territories.
“These are mammals and they have their own particular zones. But, there has been a population surge in Aarey Colony, more vehicles are coming in
and out. It wasn’t happening before – we had our space and they had theirs but now there is a lot of encroachment,” said Gaurav Mishra, 21, a resident.
While Dr Pandav praised the authorities for improvements in restricting human-animal interaction since 2002, he said the attacks were evidence more could still be done.
“Better management of garbage will be key. Food and hospital waste should in no way be dumped out in the open,” added Dr Pandav, explaining stray dogs that feed on garbage in turn attract leopards.
“A proactive monitoring system using cameras to detect leopard presence along the park edges will also act as an early warning system.”
Maharashtra, the state of which Mumbai is the capital, recorded 88 deaths from human-animal conflict in 2020 – more than any previous year.
It is clear the leopards’ future greatly divides opinion. Kavita Padher, 47, a supporter of the big cat, lives on the hillside settlement of Charandev Para, on the outskirts of the city.
“I do not fear the leopards because they are like a member of the family, we see them as the protectors of the forest,” said Ms Padher, who is an adivasi, a member of India’s tribal population.
Many adivasi communities depend on the surrounding jungle for a living through farming or selling forest produce, such as medicinal plants.
Ms Padher said she would regularly visit a local Hindu temple dedicated to leopard worship, believing the animal’s survival would bring her family good fortune.
“At seven o’clock almost every day we see a leopard come into our village and roam. It won’t attack villagers, just the dogs,” said Ms Padher.
But, not everyone in Charandev Para is convinced. Tai Soma Shinwar, the settlement’s frail elder woman, said it was only a matter of time until a child was attacked, citing the deaths of at least 25 dogs in the settlement in recent years.
“The leopard comes much more frequently now. Our villagers no longer sleep outside and we have stopped going out after nightfall,” said Ms Shinwar. “Now, most nights, I see the eyes of the leopard from outside my house.
“They shine like batteries in the dark, always on the lookout.”