Livestock Predation by Common Leopard in Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary, India: Human-Wildlife Conflicts and Conservation Issues

We investigate livestock predation by the common leopard (Panthera pardus) and emerging conflicts between this species, local people, and wildlife authorities at the Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary in the Himalayan region of India. We scrutinized secondary data that were collected by wildlife authorities; we also conducted informal interviews of villagers living within sanctuary, and wildlife staff to understand various human–leopard conflicts. Leopard density was approximately 0.33/km2 in the sanctuary. Leopards killed 1,763 domestic animals, about 90% of which were cattle, during a 14-year period. Within the sanctuary, leopards killed 1 person and injured 9 others. This high depredation rate may be due to many factors, including low density of wild prey species in the sanctuary. The high level of livestock depredation by leopards in and around the sanctuary has caused severe conflicts.