This is the first story in our two-part series “No Place To Call Home” on human-wildlife conflicts in India due to a changing climate. Subscribe for updates to the series.
Since a leopard broke in and tried to attack her dog and poultry a couple of months ago, Sheetal Vaibhav Yende has longed for safety in her own home.
She was aware of the risks of leopard attacks, living in the region of Junnar, India, which is known for having a high density of leopards. But the threat seems to have gotten closer than before. Just a few months before her personal experience with the feline in her home, a neighbor had lost four pregnant goats to a leopard attack.
For a human-dominated landscape, Junnar has a high degree of leopard density. “Six to seven leopards can be spotted in 100 square kilometers in Junnar, which is higher than many protected areas in India,” said Kumar Ankit, a researcher with the Wildlife Institute of India who has been studying the behavior of big cats in Junnar since 2019.
The population of leopards in Junnar has increased over the past few decades due to the loss of forested habitats in neighboring regions. The resultant increase in human-leopard conflict is further exacerbated by a complex interplay of geographical, environmental, and economic factors.
This conflict with the leopards has severely impacted the financial and social well-being of Sheetal’s town. “My kids accompany me to the field every evening, after school. They keep watch while I complete work,” she said, gesturing to her sugarcane farm just twenty steps away from her house during a video call. Rising concerns over safety have also led laborers in Junnar to demand higher wages, putting pressure on the economy of this local community.
The state government is considering several initiatives including a novel approach through sterilization to curb these attacks. But even these measures come with a great degree of uncertainty and risk.
In the meantime, the residents of Junnar continue to face increasing hostility from their disturbed neighbors.
“Though leopards have always been at Junnar, their population increased and so did the conflict with humans,” said resident Hausabai Kisan Yende, Sheetal’s mother-in-law.
“It is definitely due to the lack of prey in the forests.”
A sudden surge of conflict
Located approximately 200 kilometers from Mumbai in the state of Maharashtra, Junnar is located close to two major wildlife sanctuaries — Shri Bhimashankar Jyotirlinga Wildlife Reserve and Kalsubai Harichandragad Wildlife Sanctuary — which have lost significant biodiversity in the last couple of centuries. According to a 2007 assessment of biodiversity in the Western Ghats, which encompasses most of India’s west coast, less than 7 percent of the primary vegetation of the Ghats still exists.
Due to its location, Junnar benefits from extensive sources of irrigation, which makes it a bountiful producer of sugarcane — a water-intensive cash crop with higher profit margins compared to the traditionally grown millets and vegetables — but these dense sugarcane fields also create an ideal habitat for leopards, providing them with ample cover for hiding, breeding, hunting and rearing their young.
In the dense thickets of these sugarcane fields, the typically shy leopards exhibit more extroverted and bold personalities. “In these fields, the survival rate of cubs reaches an impressive 100 percent, and the lifespan of these big cats can extend to around 20 years,” said Smita Rajhans, assistant conservator of forests in the Junnar division of the state forest department.
In contrast, leopards in the wild face greater challenges when securing their prey, resulting in shorter lifespans of about 12-15 years, she said. As a result, many leopards have made these fields their home, showing little inclination to return to the diminished forests.
In the last couple of decades, these leopards have killed 31 people and over 12,000 livestock creatures, and have damaged almost 1,500 hectares of crops, according to the Junnar Forest Division. The state forest department has issued INR 12.15 crores (equivalent to $1.4 million) to compensate the residents for these losses.
These leopards also occupy a smaller core area compared to other big cats, Ankit said, which means they are more likely to come into conflict with any humans living within the bounds of their core region.
“Leopards here have a core area of just 4 km while in the tiger bearing areas, it is more than 30km,” he said. “60-70 percent of them prevail in the same locality with very little evidence of dispersal. As the population is above Junnar’s carrying capacity, there is a risk of spilling it over to adjoining cities such as Pune,” which is a fast-growing metropolitan city in India.
But for the farmers of the region, getting rid of the dense sugarcane fields is also not an option.
“Sugarcane is a traditional crop in Junnar; we’ve always grown it, alongside soya, bajra [pearl millet], and occasionally onions,” Hausabai said, adjusting the pallu of her saree to shield herself from the harsh sun.
What would sterilization of leopards entail?
Last week, a leopard killed a four-year-old boy in one of the sugarcane fields in Junnar, making it the ninth death in the region since March 2024.
As a result, children have been prohibited from playing outside, people are afraid to take leisurely strolls and many elderly farmers are abandoning their farms altogether.
The Maharashtra Forest Department has set up various monitoring measures to curb these conflicts. “We have established a Leopard Rescue Centre which has the capacity to shelter 44 animals. So far, 43 conflict animals are sheltered here,” Rajhans said.
The forest department has put radio collars on several leopards, set up helpline numbers for leopard sightings, and assigned 278 range officers to conduct awareness sessions for the villagers on how to survive in a region with human-leopard conflicts. The department has also trained a rapid rescue team made of volunteers and set up base camps at four prime locations to reduce the response time needed for action.
Yet these strategies have not been enough, and the state forest department has now started to look at sterilizing these animals as an effective strategy to control their population. They have proposed sterilizing 36 females and 11 males as a start. This initiative will be the first of its kind in India for wild, carnivorous animals.
A notable precedent geared towards monkeys took place in the state of Himachal Pradesh in India, where 186,448 monkeys were sterilized between 2006 and 2024 to prevent crop damage. However, reports indicate that the monkey menace persists and they have been adapting over time and targeting crops like ginger, which they had never consumed before.
The government has also tried to curb dogs through sterilization in the past but with little success. “The basic difference is the numbers. We would be dealing with only a few leopards in a particular area as against the humongous stray dogs population even in a particular area,” said Kedar Gore, wildlife conservationist and director of The Corbett Foundation.
“Even leopard sterilization may fail or face challenges. But it would be worth trying as we need to explore long term humane solutions to mitigate human-leopard negative interactions.”
However, this proposal has not been approved by the central authority, which lies with the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, despite repeated appeals from parliament member Amol Kolhe.
Is sterilization really the solution?
According to the Maharashtra government’s sterilization proposal, 11 male leopards will undergo laparoscopic vasectomy while 36 female leopards will undergo laparoscopic tubectomy.
Naveen Pandey, a conservationist and veterinarian, said these laparoscopic surgeries are relatively simple procedures.
“Laparoscopic surgery involves making a small incision and performing the surgery with the help of a camera-mounted instrument. The recovery time is less but the animals should be monitored for three days as any complication with wound healing usually happens after 36 hours,” he said.
To reduce the duration of stress on the animals, Pandey suggests setting up mobile operating units close to the forests. “Let’s not forget that leopards are more shy than tigers. It is going to be a challenge to trap and move them. Identifying operated leopards will be critical as well,” he said.
Laparoscopic tubectomy involves cutting the fallopian tubes in the female leopards, which means there will be no disruption to their hormonal balance. “If the uterus and ovaries were removed, it would reduce the number of available females for mating, causing males to disperse further in search of partners, potentially shifting the problem to other areas,” Pandey said. “With tubectomy, we expect fewer behavioral issues, but close, long-term monitoring is necessary to observe any changes.”
This monitoring will likely be in the form of satellite collars, which the animals would have to wear for 18 months to make sure a sterilized leopard doesn’t end up at the operating table again “as other ways of marking may not work well,” Pandey said.
But there are several challenges that accompany such an undertaking.
“Challenges such as capturing the leopards, avoiding the capture of already sterilized individuals, and post-procedure care are crucial. The sterilized leopards must be monitored for at least two to three years to study any behavioral changes,” Gore said.
“We don’t have studies to explain how sterilization would affect their genetics and behavior,” said leopard researcher Nikit Surve. “I am certain sterilization cannot be the only solution.”
Despite the loss of lives and livelihoods due to leopard attacks in Junnar, farmers do not want the felines to undergo sterilization.
“They are not attacking us for fun. They prey on us for food, something that is scarce in the forest,” said resident Priya Amol Jadhav. She suggested the government should take advantage of the situation and create tourist-focused leopard safaris in Junnar.
Though Mumbai’s urban landscape significantly differs from Junnar’s rural setting, the success of initiatives towards leopard control in Mumbai demonstrates that peaceful coexistence between humans and leopards is possible.
“By educating communities, improving reporting, and establishing quick-response teams, Mumbai has reduced human-leopard conflict significantly,” Surve said. “These efforts suggest that even in diverse habitats, structured coexistence strategies can mitigate fear and prevent conflict.”
