NEW DELHI: India’s leopard population increased to 12,852 in 2018 from around 8,000 in 2014, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said on Monday. The minister was publishing the ‘State of Leopards in India Report 2018 ‘.
The minister stated that the increase in leopard numbers, followed by similar reports on tigers and lions, shows that the country is protecting its ecology and biodiversity well.
These are the key points of the report:
The minister stated that the increase in leopard numbers, followed by similar reports on tigers and lions, shows that the country is protecting its ecology and biodiversity well.
These are the key points of the report:
- The leopard population has been estimated using the camera capture method.
- There are 12,852
leopards in India from 2018, a 60% increase from 2014. - The highest concentration of the leopard in India is estimated to be in Madhya Pradesh (3,421), followed by Karnataka (1,783) and Maharashtra (1,690).
- Recent meta-analyzes on the status and distribution of the leopard suggest a loss of distribution of the species of 48 to 67% in Africa and 83 to 87% in Asia.
- In India, leopards have experienced a possibly human-induced 75-90% population decline in the last ~ 120-200 years.
- In the poaching of the Indian subcontinent, habitat loss, depletion of natural prey and conflict are the main threats to leopard populations.
- All this has led to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) changing the status of the species from ‘Near Threatened’ to ‘Vulnerable’.
- In terms of regional distribution, the largest number of 8,071 leopards was found in central India and the eastern ghats, which include the states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
- In the western ghat region, which comprises Karnataka, Tamil Nadi, Goa and Kerala, there are 3,387 leopards.
- There are 1,253 leopards in Shivalik and the Ganges plains which include Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Bihar.
- In the northeast hills, there are only 141 leopards.
(With inputs from agencies)
.
