Villagers beat to death a leopard that ran amok in Mandawar village, near Gurgaon.

THE image of a leopard beleaguered by lathi-wielding assailants in Gurgaon district published in newspapers captured my attention instantly. I wondered whether the idea was (a) to bring to the fore the consequences of the ongoing, flawed strategies for “development,” which have expanded the human footprint all around and even through the heartland of animal habitats, (b) that wildlife refuges have in the process been fragmented into disjointed, meagre patches which hold inadequate prey-populations, in the instant case for the leopards’ survival, and (c) the inevitable transgression of predators into human habitation in search of food and resultant horrors of the avoidable man-animal, tragic conflict situations. Sadly, the inadequate related reportage is more likely to have demonised the leopard as a wanton killer because nine persons were injured. It unwittingly drummed up fear psychosis, furthering the prevalent antipathy towards our wildlife in general, beleaguered as it is. In almost all such conflict situations, my  mind always reaches out to wise but unheeded utterance of Mahatma Gandhi: “The worth of a civilisation is judged by the manner it treats its animals.” Even some 80 years later today, there is little evidence to suggest that we Indians have developed more empathy with the animal world.  The misconceived notion of a leopard surfeit in India and therefore frequent encounters in rural habitations and occasionally in urban India is patently borne out of ignorance.  Of the three larger surviving cats — namely the lion, the tiger and the leopard, the former two, fortunately, have reasonable habitat to support their current, diminished numbers. However, the leopard being reclusive had created niches for itself throughout the country in landscapes similar to the Aravalli range as in the instant case. The leopard alone is able to live and thrive almost anywhere except for the Thar Desert and beyond the tree-line in the Himalayas which is the exclusive domain of its more elusive sibling, the snow leopard.The leopard, as indeed the lion and the tiger, all had immigrated from the North, entering India from the two flanks of the Himalayas, ages ago.  And the leopard is believed to have preceded the other two cats, a theory supported by the fact that leopards had colonised up to the southern-most tip of our land, which ultimately got detached and became the island state of Sri Lanka, complete with leopards! The lion and the tiger evidently arrived in India after that geological event, which also explains their absence from that island nation.  Over time, while the lion got almost wiped out and the tiger too came under severe hunting pressures, the cunning leopard managed to fare better.   In the light of this historical backdrop it becomes easier to understand why today the leopard exceeds the lion population manifold and that of the tiger by a factor of perhaps 10. No matter how numerous the leopard may be but man has little to fear from them. Lieut Col AHE Mosse (1864-1929, the Indian Army), considered an authority on the leopard in India, had summed up his lifetime’s experience thus: “Generally speaking it may be laid down as an axiom that neither tiger nor panther will ever, unprovoked, attack mankind.  It is the Jungle Law, by virtue of the respect for and dread of man in which all the jungle creatures are brought up.”Lieut Col R G Burton (1868-1963), also of the Indian Army, who was a dedicated wildlife conservationist and is credited with the movement which resulted in the creation of the Indian Board for Wildlife in 1954, had opined that: “Leopard are timid and retiring, and no doubt conceal themselves on the approach of a human being…….I have known of a man who was lying asleep in the open in daylight, wrapped up in a black blanket.  It (Leopard) perhaps mistook him for a goat but dropped him as soon as he (man) cried out…I have myself nearly trodden on a panther.  I was going down a hill covered with sparse jungle when I smelt the animal and looking down, saw it lying under a bush at my feet.  It rose and walked over the slope into denser thicket…” Nevertheless, just as today it would be suicidal for a man to walk across a six-lane express-way so it would be unwise to invite a leopard’s wrath either through wanton provocation or by interfering when he is closing upon his prey.  Now why did that leopard stray into rural habitation in Gurgaon district? Well, just as a North Indian is drawn hopelessly to the aroma of saag garnished with a dollop of fresh butter and topped with a makki roti or a South Indian by the idli and rasam, similarly a leopard cannot resist the dog (domesticated or stray, one among its gourmet delights), goats or bovines. As the feline preys mostly nocturnally and on occasional misty winter’s nights when the scent of prey does not arise above the ground surface, the predator keeps his nose to the ground in search of prey and in the process tends to lose direction and discretion. Once inside any human habitation, the combination of high-voltage light beams with the constant thrumming of  vehicular traffic noise, engulfs the strayed leopard in a sense of panic and he seeks out a secluded, dark spot to take shelter.In the instant case, the leopard had been prowling in the area of encounter for about two weeks and the State Forest Department was in the process of trapping or perhaps tranquilising it to prevent any fatalities. But then who can prevail when an irate, hysteria-seized crowd of some1500 decides to pulverise one hapless and voiceless creature, unmindful that extinction of a species is irreversible?  It is ironic that four days prior to the above incident we had another gut-churning image of a cow elephant who was on a pathway genetically imprinted in her system since eons and so fell into a newly dug pit. She fractured a rear leg and her infant calf snuggled by her trunk, putting his head consolingly, on her  inert body. But to no avail as she died and the calf may or may not survive the shock. It is time that we learn to live and let live in the true symbiotic spirit.  And never forget the sage advice offered by the Red Indian Chief Seattle, to President Franklin Pearse of the USA in the 1850s: “What is man without the beasts? Once the beasts are gone, man will surely die from a great loneliness of the spirit.”