Dilmah Gen3 Amrit Fernando Discussion on Human-Leopard Conflict with Dr. Athreya

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Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast, Brewing Inspiration. Today, I'm here with Dr. Vidya as we talk about leopards, how to admire them, protect and respect them to avoid conflict and ensure human leopard coexistence. Doctor, thank you so much for being here. Thanks, Amrit. Thanks for having me. You have such an illustrious career. You have focused particularly on conflict with leopards and humans, but also you've won awards like the Carl Zeiss Award or the Wildlife Conservation Society Award. Clearly, we're in the midst of an expert who loves leopards. Can you please tell me why you focused on leopards? Yeah, sure. Again, thanks for having me, George.

It's a pleasure. Thank you so much for being here. It's a lovely country, so thank you for having me. Actually, it was quite serendipitous. Like, I didn't expect to be working on conflict and I was just a wildlife biologist. I had my little daughter and I was planning to not work till she went to full school, you know. So, we were living in a place which had a lot of leopard attacks on people. So, my friends came and said, why don't you just help us? We will do all the field work. You just oversee it. And that's where it began because it was a cropland landscape. It wasn't a forest and there were leopards there and there were leopard attacks on people there. So, it was like, what is happening?

And that's where it started. So that was prior to your PhD or after? That was actually much prior to my PhD, yeah. And we just started doing some work with the local forest department trying to understand why the attacks on people suddenly increased. And later on, we came to know that it was because of translocation. So, when you take out leopards that are living just eating dogs and livestock and you say, oh my god, they are not supposed to be here because they are supposed to be in the forest and take them and put them in the forest, attacks on people actually started near the release site because this, then we didn't know that this is their home.

This is where their societies are. They've never ever seen a forest in their life. They are cropland leopards. So that informing that and working with the forest department about that was quite a journey. It was really interesting and I really enjoyed it. Amazing. For viewers who are not aware about exactly leopards and their habitats and how they exist in an environment, can we touch on a few questions, some sort of frequently asked questions? Yeah. The first one is, what is the usual size and weight of an adult leopard? Right. So, an average female, adult female would be about 40 kilos and an average adult, I mean, average adult male would be about 60 to 70. So they are actually really different.

The females look smaller, much smaller than the males. So they can be quite large. Like 70 kilos is not a small animal. I know, yeah. I can imagine. And they are the smallest cat in the big cat family. I think the snow leopard is smaller. It just probably looks fluffier because of its, but I think weight wise it's probably less. Okay, I was just reading a little bit about leopards and I came across that they are spread around so many different habitats and it seems like leopards are very adaptable to their conditions. Can you explain a bit about, like sort of, is it like a, was it evolution or how does that work?

So, I think leopards are, they occur from the desert areas in Africa all the way to the snow areas in the Russian Far East. Now, if you ask me another species that is extremely adaptable are us humans. But we never question how we are, you know, what is our natural state? Yes, yeah. Okay, so it's just a story about two highly adaptable species trying to just lead their lives, have their babies and just move on. And just keep going, yeah. And the thing is because they share the same space, then all these problems come, you know. So, I think it's just very adaptable species. It eats like frogs to rodents to a 400 kilo deer, you know.

So, yeah. Have you noticed that, so example Mumbai, the urban living leopards, are they, do they vary in physique or is there any changes physically? So, just to let you know that in Mumbai, like whenever small it was called Bombay, so I keep saying Bombay. It is a national park which has the original forest and the city is creeping upon the national park. So, long back there were tigers also in what was Mumbai today. Okay, so now the leopards are there in the national park and they are found in the peripheries. So, that's where the issue is. And I think I forgot your question. Do they have a, yeah, are they? So, I don't think their physics are different but for instance the leopards that live in Mumbai and in the croplands nearby, they don't walk much because they sit all day because human presence is so much.

Then in the night we found our collared leopards in the croplands walk an average of some one kilometer and they go to the nearest dump yard, get their dogs and pigs and come back and sit. So, they actually really, pretty very guilty of it. So, the environment truly just moles that. There's so much food resource, that's why. I guess it's like, you know, human beings who have a lot more to eat versus human beings.

So, very similar, you know, human beings and leopards so far, that's what I'm getting. I think so, yeah. I mean, even if you look, like, I'm a mother, right? And when I see a leopard mother and her cubs, you know, there was in fact one interesting incident when a leopard mother had put her three cubs in a wheat field. So, the wheat is just this high. So, the farmer had seen the cubs and he had got them. So, they put the cubs in the bait cage and they caught the mother. So, when we went to put a microchip in her, the cubs were in a nearby cage and she was in a nearby cage. She could see the cubs and she could see that we are so close to her cubs. She just did not get sedated. She refused sedation and the veterinarian told me that stimulus, powerful stimulus, can prevent them from going into stimulation or into sedation. And he said later that, you know,

it's because she's, maybe she saw the cubs so close to us that she just resisted it. So, which is why even after in an emergency situation, when you tranquilize a leopard, you're supposed to leave and go away for 15 minutes. So, it can calm down. So, it can calm down because if it keeps seeing humans and all, it fights the sedation is what I've been told by the veterinarians. I have another question. What is the typical diet of a leopard?

If we're talking about these, they have so many different habitats. What could you say is the typical diet? I would say medium sized animals that are the most abundant in that landscape would be like, for instance, where in the croplands where I work, the goats, dogs and calves, they will not go for the bigger cows because those are Jersey cows. It's not the free ranging cows. So, they'll never go for the bigger animals, but they go a lot for dogs compared to goats because goats are protected in sheds, in cattle sheds, whereas dogs are not. So, it's easily available medium sized. Yeah. Speaking about prey, I've seen photographs of leopards carrying their prey onto trees. Yeah. Can you explain? And then I've seen them also sort of resting. Why do they climb trees? I think what people generally say is like, in the forest, you get away from the tigers and the wild dogs. Y'all don't have wild dogs, you're the dolls. No, it's sort of scary. No, these are the Asiatic wild dogs. So,

they can chase the leopard and even tigers chase the leopard, but the tigers will not be able to climb. So, I think that's why they feel safe. Yeah. And in fact, even in the cropland landscape, I had a farmer once tell me that the leopard killed his Alsatian dog, but took it up on the tree because the hyenas were troubling it below. Yeah. So, I think it is to get away from other animals that can injure it. Yeah. Do leopards have other predators sort of, that have to watch their back sort of thing? They will, yeah. So, humans are one. So, natural predators. Yeah, sorry. And the other is tiger for sure. And in leopards, it's also the larger males. Younger males will have to be scared of the larger males. Yeah. So, in the Yara National Park, there is a high density of leopard, which means they might be crossing territories.

Are they, can they socialize? Because I know they're solitary according to research, but are they socializing? So, actually, I think this solitary thing is a myth because these animals do not allow us to see them, right? The moment we are there, they run away. But in some places, like in some places in Africa, some places in India, where leopards allow us to see them, four, five of them are hanging out. There is the cub from the earlier litter who is big, with the cub of the next litter with the father and the mother. But very interestingly, they have societies and it's built around females. So, the mother will give some of her space to her daughter. Sisters live nearby. It's the males which, the younger males which go long distances.

Really? Yeah. So, it is a society built around females. Yes. I didn't know that at all. I know. So, why isn't anybody talking about that? Or have I just missed it? I have, I don't know if it's funny or if it's true, but I think it's because the biologists were solitary. They choose to view the leopards as solitary because if you want to really understand leopard society, you have to collar all the leopards in one area. Whereas earlier, the work that was done, and even sometimes now, they'll take one leopard here, then they'll catch one leopard there. So, then obviously, if you collar somebody in my house and you collar somebody in the neighbour's house, we had solitary, right? Exactly. You have to collar the whole family to know what is happening.

So, interestingly, in my one, we were lucky that we collared the saberat male and the mother. And we found that when she had her next cub for two nights, she didn't come back to the den. He was there with the cub. Yes. So, that's a lesson to humans as well that the older brothers need to take care of the younger children. Oh dear. I feel like you're pointing fingers now.

Wow. I didn't know that. Amazing. Wow. Okay. So, currently, leopards as a species are categorised as vulnerable, and the sub-categories are endangered and sound critical. What is the reason for that decline?

So, I think conflict is a huge problem. The main problem, if you ask me about the former leopards, is the problem that they share space with humans and often take humans' property livestock, and in some cases, like in India, it is rare, but it is very huge as attacks happen on people. So, I think that is actually the biggest threat, if you ask me, to the leopards, because unless you, see, the world over large cats aren't declined because of human persecution. Poisoning is so easy. You put out some pesticide on a dog that has been killed, but yet in India and Sri Lanka, you still have large cats. Okay. It is because a lot of cultural aspects, acceptance, tolerance, whatever you may call it, and I think that is something that we should actually be proud of and actually reward in the people that share space with wildlife.

Like, I hear you also have a lot of bears, yeah, and it is not easy sharing space with, I mean, you ask people in the city how many of them will want to share space, but how are we thanking the rural people who actually share space with these animals, yeah.

But, like you say, the sort of poisoning and all that, there is a mentality that, you know, to sort of rid these leopards, but how can we, how are you changing them? So, the anger that is often there is more because they didn't, they feel the sense of injustice. We didn't get our compensation in time. It wasn't enough, but when you really go down and talk to the people, otherwise you find there is this lot of acceptance. It's very different than going to countries where, which doesn't have any wildlife and those people are scared of one wolf which they have in a thousand square kilometers. So, yes, what is reported and what we are commonly aware of is a problem, but actually when you go down and have longer conversations with people, you find them to be quite accepting. Otherwise, these animals would not be there, right? We could have got rid of them long back. There is something, I don't understand it, but there is some cultural aspect which allows our animals to be there in our landscapes.

I don't know how long it is going to be for and I think that's where we have to all try together to ensure that it is so big because it will be pretty sad if we lose, if the planet is only of humans, right? Actually, on our estates, one of my father's favorite estates is Dunkhill. There is, can I call them a colony of leopards? I don't know.

A group of leopards that are wandering the plantations and we've established this nature corridor to enhance the ecosystem and develop biodiversity because amongst tea plantations, it's a monoculture and my grandfather and father wanted to value and support ecosystems and amongst that he's looking after these leopards. I see. What is the value a leopard plays? What is the role they play in an ecosystem? So, they are apex predators, so they keep the prey under control because otherwise you just have too many deer and then you have loss of forest, loss of regeneration because the deer are eating. So, definitely they have a value in the ecosystem that they live in, but I'm going to put something else to you. What about the cultural value as well?

They are part of our cultural natural heritage. That's also a very important value, right? Something, actually, this is something I've not even thought about because can you explain that a bit more? I mean, it's almost like we are custodians. We as humans have impacted the planet so much and we continue to impact it. It'll be terrible if a planet that we got with all these creatures, it is us who decimate it all. I mean, I think it's just not fine, but it may be just my personal opinion. No, I completely agree with that. And I think most people will because it's quite a deep thing, right? We are custodians of this planet and if we are custodians then we have to take care of people, wildlife, everything, right? Yeah, it's our duty, so to speak. Absolutely.

Yeah. So now, as I say, we have leopards wandering our tea plantations. Quick question, what does someone do if they are face to face with a leopard? So I think before getting to face to face, they should avoid being in that situation in the first place. So there are two things. One is when you're plucking tea, one of my colleagues who works in the tea gardens in northern West Bengal, he was saying that when the tea plucking starts, they're trying to start beating drums from one end so that whatever animal is there moves away. So the moment leopards know humans are coming, they just go away. So instead of people going all around and like, let's say, you know, a leopard is here and people start plucking, plucking, then it's going to be a problem. So before plucking, can you beat drums so that, you know, this is the plucking area. So whatever's there goes away and then you start plucking.

Does that stress the animal in any way or is it stuck? It'll manage to get out. Yeah, we are not running after it. We're just gently beating the drums and moving ahead. It'll just move off. The other thing is if children should never be left alone early morning, late evening. Yeah, we do that even in the cities. Yeah. And the other thing is if a worker or somebody has to walk alone, it's better to do so by singing even if they are alone. Sing the song. That's fine. Because the leopards know that humans are coming or put on a song on your mobile phone and walk. It's not like they intentionally want to interact at all. Yeah, they are really scared of us. And the other thing is that, you know, if you have goats and if you have dogs, then in the evening hours, you have to make sure there's a proper shed. It can be a simple thorny stick shed, you know, which is traditional design

which many places or it can be a very simple, but it has to be a, you can't even leave this much of a space because if the head gets through the whole body of a cat gets through. Yeah.

Do you think people should take sort of precautions or I mean, what is the, what is your suggestion? We recommend that people take precautions. They are really simple precautions. It's not too much. Like even if you have to go and answer nature's call in the middle of the night, for instance, just sing a song and do it or talk to yourself or whatever, but it's just informing the leopard that there's a person that's in there. So I don't think it'll take away time from you or anything. It's just simple things that become part of normal life.

Some people are taking precautions that might hurt or sort of injure leopards like scaring. What do you think about that? So I think it's really dangerous to have an injured leopard in your surrounding because the animal won't be able to hunt well, you know, so it is best to minimize such instances in any place like because an injured leopard is a dangerous one. So you do not want to be... Why is it aggressive? No, it just can't hunt effectively. You know, then it will come closer to houses to pick up dogs and then accidents. Accidents can happen further, you know, it may not be able to run away as easily if a human being is coming. So you really don't want and then there are other implications. What if you snare the mother and she has cubs who are like this high. So they will be hungry and they'll come closer to homes and you're just, they are inexperienced because they are young and you're just creating the potential for more

problem. I'm a passionate photographer and I came across this wildlife photographer's work, he's a BBC wildlife photographer and he's based out of Mumbai and he was photographing the array colony, is that right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this particular leopard called Luna and he was, he said that Mumbai has mastered the way of coexisting with leopards, is that right? Or is there something we can learn for Sri Lanka? Yeah, I think it's something we can learn even for Mumbai because see this is very tenuous, okay? It's an ongoing journey of ensuring that peace is maintained. It's very easy to create conflict, it's very hard to maintain peace, right? So the RA leopards, it was really amazing because a whole bunch of youngsters came together and said let's just know our leopards. So they started camera trapping every day just for the joy, nobody was paying them, you know, the forest department gave them some batteries and some camera traps but and so they know all their leopards and it's done something very different and very nice is that

when a human attack took place because of this constant camera trapping by these youngsters, they exactly knew which leopard was where. So they could go in and pick out that animal which had attacked a person otherwise it's almost close to impossible to do that. So they could really help the forest department to do it and it was just passionate youngsters who just wanted to and some of those images are stunning, yeah? So there are a couple of lessons that can be learned. One is that the power of the young people and your enthusiasm, you know, it's amazing you can use it for conservation, it can be of great help to the authorities when they need help in management.

So that is another thing and also like I think the Bombay project was really inclusive like it allowed everybody to come on board so that led to so many, it led to a photographer, it led to somebody else, you know, a housewife, she was interested, a retired gentleman, he is interested and I think that's really nice because people want to contribute to conservation, they want to contribute for welfare of both people and animals and it's a great opportunity to do that and I think that even India should learn and even everybody should learn. That's a great answer and you said the importance of young people taking a role in this and as a young person how can I build my passion, desire, how can I step into this world of make a conflict resolution with leopards or setting camera traps, how can I start that journey?

So I think first is just being sensitive and aware, yeah, but even using your tools, now you say you're a passionate photographer, like showing what, even like maybe where the tea gardens are, where you work, you know, just showing the biodiversity and putting it out there because people will appreciate it then, yeah, I think just even that simple thing is, yeah, good and people are fascinated, anybody is fascinated by these animals, so you know, like the BBC photographer, like you remember him because of, he's just like you, you know, he's just passionate about it and I think that's just it, yeah. That's it, you know, after talking to you and seeing what you've done, you seem like the glue to any community that's, so you're just bringing people together to, you know, support this coexistence and I thank you so much for everything you're doing. Thanks for the kind words Amrit but it was not me, I think there were a lot of people who felt the same, like the forest officer who started this again wanted

everybody involved, you know, and then there was another lady who was a coordinator, she wanted and then even the biologists wanted a lot of students, so it was, if you ask me, it was the most fun project because it was all about, and we did it with very little money, it was largely voluntary and it was just out of fun, you know, so I think those things are very powerful because at the end of the day, we humans are social, right, so if we harness that social, sociality in a positive way, even now like 12 years later, we were like oh my, that was the best project we did. So yeah, thank you so much for your kind words. Thank you, thank you so much.