O n a late August afternoon in 2019, a farmer named Shivamadaiah walked with his cattle near Bandipur National Park. A difficult problem – I hope India is up to solving it. Note that leopards are essential in parts of rural India as they control populations of boars etc that would destroy local agriculture if populations were allowed to grow unchecked. In Utrakhand for example leopards are the main source of negative big cat/human interaction and the most cost effective solution, from the perspective of saving human lives, is obvious – however to protect both humans and leopards is a far more difficult problem than protecting both tigers and humans. Curiously it costs about 7 lakh to rehabilitate a leopard and 4 to destroy it.
If the reserves cannot grow then the big cat populations have to be controlled more effectively. The conflicts between humans and big cats is on the rise, not only in India – in the end humans will win and the cats will be gone – this is a tragedy that should/must be avoided however this can only be done by enforcing the separation between species. When an animal start preying on neighbouring human populations then it has to be destroyed – unless you are placing a value on it that is larger than that that of a person. The problem is that growth of the human population outside of the reserves and growth of the tiger population inside the reserves increases the pressure on the buffer regions – which were never designed to handle these numbers. India and Nepal’s tiger conservation programs have been successful.
0 kommentar(er)
