Leopards numbers in India down by 80% over last 100 years

#leopard #projecttiger #poachers Leopards in India are becoming a fast vanishing species and a team of researchers have revealed that the count of this animal has gone down by nearly 80% over the last 100 years. This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 6 April 2015.
Of late, several instances have been reported of human-leopard conflict and it had been presumed that this was happening because of increase in leopard population. This is blamed to the loss of their natural habitats. But, a study conducted by three wildlife scientists over a period of four years has found that the situation is just the opposite.

The study has concluded that leopard population has gone down by a whopping 70-80 per cent over the past 100 years. The study was conducted by reps of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) – the report has been sent to wildlife journals for review.
Incidentally, Tigers have got protection under the Project Tiger program because of which, poachers are now replacing tiger body parts with those of leopards. Proof of this is the fact that around 4,000 body parts and bones of leopards were recovered in the period 1994-2013 as compared to 1,000 body parts of tigers.

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