According to information given to Parliament by the Union Ministry of Environment, at least 260 leopards were poached in the country between 2015 and 2018. Uttarakhand (60) and Himachal Pradesh (49) account for the largest number of cases.
About:
The Indian leopard is one of the big cats occurring on the Indian subcontinent, apart from the Asiatic lion, Bengal tiger, snow leopard and clouded leopard.
Scientific Name: Panthera pardus.
Common Name: Indian leopard or Common leopard.
Characteristics:
The leopard is the smallest of the big cats, and is known for its black-spotted coat.
A nocturnal animal, the leopard hunts by night.
An extremely agile creature, it spends most of its resting time on top of trees, using land only to move locations, but rarely to rest or nap.
It is known to carry its prey up on trees. This is especially common in leopards that share their habitat with tiger.
Melanism:
Melanism is a common occurrence in leopards, wherein the entire skin of the animal is black in colour, including its spots.
A melanistic leopard is often called black panther or jaguar, and mistakenly thought to be a different species.
Habitat: In India, the leopard is found in all forest types, from tropical rainforests to temperate deciduous and alpine coniferous forests. It is also found in dry scrubs and grasslands, the only exception being desert and the mangroves of Sundarbans.
Distribution: It shares its territory with the tiger in 17 states. Its range stretches from the Indus river in the west, the Himalayas in the north, and all the way to the lower course of the Brahmaputra in the east.
Population: In 2014, a national census of leopards around tiger habitats was carried out in India except the northeast. 7,910 individuals were estimated in surveyed areas and a national total of 12,000-14,000 was speculated.
Status:
Listed on a par with Tigers under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act (WPA), 1972.
Listed in Appendix I of CITES.
Listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.
Conservation Issues: Major threats are man-animal conflicts, availability of prey base and road/train accidents.
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