After tracking radio-collared big cats, researchers have gained insights about home ranges, eating habits
The leopard radio-collaring project undertaken at SGNP. Pic/SGNP/WCS-India/Nikit Surve
The leopard radio-collaring project undertaken at Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP), involving two males and three females, has shed light on the secret lives of the big cats. Officials have learnt that the leopardesses have a smaller home range compared to their male counterparts. A home range refers to the area in which an animal lives and moves on a periodic basis.
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The smallest home range recorded for an adult female (L36) was 2.58 sq km while the largest for an adult male (L93) was 84.26 sq km.
The Maharashtra forest department and the Wildlife Conservation Society-India undertook a collaborative research project to study these elusive creatures from August 2020 to August 2022 and radio-telemetry was adopted for the first time in two phases to gain an understanding of leopards’ secret life in a unique habitat. The project sought to understand leopards’ interactions with humans in an urban landscape. Its other main objectives were to understand how the big cats utilise space and time in the SGNP landscape and how they move across major roads and highways such as Ghodbunder Road.
The study is titled 'Understanding leopards and their interactions with people: dispersal, home range size & habitat use of leopards in a human-dominated landscape of Mumbai using GPS telemetry'.
The collared leopard individuals were monitored by field staff and researchers for three to four months by actual on-field tracking. A total walk effort of approximately 700 km was recorded.
SGNP Director G Mallikarjun said, “Female leopards showed smaller home ranges than male leopards. Overall the home ranges documented in this study were smaller as compared to other studies from India, probably due to the adequate availability of prey.”
Using camera traps, the researchers documented territorial overlap between leopards. Interestingly, the researchers also noted a maximum of nine leopards using one of the collared leopard’s (L126) territories.
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Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (APCCF) Dr V Clement Ben said, “The findings of the study also pointed out that leopard diet mainly comprised domestic prey available throughout the periphery of SGNP. The researchers identified 97 feeding events between all five collared leopards, of which about 79.38 per cent comprised domestic prey. It was also observed leopards making kills of spotted deer and sambars.”
The researchers also documented two collared females (L36 and L95) with cubs during our monitoring period, and both gave birth to a litter of cubs towards the end of the summer season in 2022. One of the collared females was documented mating during the telemetry project.
It was also documented that adult males L93 and L126 crossed linear intrusions like railways and state highways during the night hours.
“The leopards were mostly active at night; during the day, they rested inside SGNP. We also documented instances where leopards were near humans, but the latter were unaware of this,” said Mallikarjun.
An unprecedented study
Mumbai’s history with radio-collared leopards goes back ten years when Ajoba, a radio-collared male leopard from Malshej Ghat, walked approximately 120 km and reached SGNP.
"The manner in which leopards occupy the human-dominated landscape with minimal conflict is interesting. The study helped researchers understand how leopards utilise readily available food resources along the periphery of the SGNP but actively avoid humans. While this is the first-of-its-kind study on urban leopards in India, we hope this work will increase our understanding of the otherwise secretive big cat of Mumbai," an official said.
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