650 leopards in Kerala’s tiger reserves
Context: The State’s leopard population is the third highest in the Western Ghats region.
- Karnataka tops the list with 1,783 leopards, followed by Tamil Nadu with 868, according to the Status of Leopards in India 2018 report. Goa has 86.
- The Western Ghats region is home to 3,387 leopards, against India’s population of 12,852.
- The leopard population was counted during the tiger population assessment undertaken in 2018.
- The leopard population was estimated to be within the forested habitats in tiger-occupied States.
- The presence of the animal was recorded in the forested areas of Western Ghats, Nilgiris, and sporadically across much of the dry forests of Central Karnataka.
Camera traps
- The southern leopard population block in southern Kerala and Tamil Nadu comprised the forests of Periyar-Kalakad Mundanthurai -Kanyakumari.
- A total of 6,758 leopard photographs were obtained from Western Ghats from camera traps. The images helped in the identification of 1,681 adults and sub-adults.
- While noting that the leopard population had increased in most of the tiger reserves in the Western Ghats landscape, the report cautioned that the growing human population and increasing fragmentation of landscape led to increased human-wildlife interactions in the region.
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