Friends of the feline

Pune-based ecologist Vidya Athreya is mentoring people to foster a peaceful coexistence between the manand the bigcat
Vidya Athreya; (left) a file photo of Ajoba with Vidya and her team
Vidya Athreya; (left) a file photo of Ajoba with Vidya and her team

Every other day, stories of leopard attacks are duly reported in the newspapers. Sometimes, a few human lives are lost and sometimes the feline is ruthlessly done to death. Man and animal can learn to co-exist, without tragic outcomes for either of them. And Pune-based ecologist Dr Vidya Athreya has been spreading awareness about this, for the past 15 years. The 2014 Marathi film Ajoba, which features the adventures of a collared leopard set free into the wild, is based on Vidya’s life.

Ajoba was a leopard, who was rescued from an open well in farmland of Takli Dokeshwar in Pune in 2009. Athreya had collared the leopard with a GPS transmitter before releasing it 60 km away near Malshej Ghats. Ajoba became the first subject of a research project on farmland leopards. The GPS, before it went dead, helped them track its whereabouts for many days.

Vidya, who works as Associate Director with the Wildlife Conservation Society India, was not so much interested in the big cat as much as she was curious about human and animal sharing the space. So now she is mentoring a few others in this line of work.

“I was interested in the issue of animal living among people. Colonial legacy had exterminated the carnivores some 100 years ago. There was state-sponsored mass killing of these animals. Now maybe because of the conservation movement, the animals are coming back,” she says.

In 2002, when leopard attacks became more frequent in the Pune region, she began studying them seriously. Also, a project in Junnar in 2003 set her to seek answers. “Junnar is dominated by an agricultural landscape. The field staff reported dealing with the leopard on a regular basis but the journals kept telling something else. What is the leopard doing here I wondered?” says Vidya, adding that she found the concept of shared spaces fascinating.

Talking about man-leopard conflict, Vidya is quick to point out that the term conflict has negative connotations. “There are different kinds of interactions. Some people worship the leopard, some are ok with it and some not. One must realise that the animal is not out to get us.”

But what’s been noticed is that attacks happen more near the release site. After all, you are removing the animal from a territory familiar to it and dumping it elsewhere. “The animal gets desperate, it is hungry, confused and prone to attack then,” says Vidya, who is also a part of the International Union for Conservation of Nature Cat specialist Group.

With the aim of spreading awareness about these big cats and how attacks on humans can be minimised, Project Waghoba was started in 2007.  

“In central India, many tribes and village communities worship the big feline deity, Waghoba,” says Vidya, adding that courtesy the project several programmes have aimed to spread awareness. Mrunal Ghosalkar, awareness and outreach coordinator at the Centre for Wildlife Studies, Bengaluru, is part of one such programme, ‘Janata Waghoba’ (The Wise Big Cat). “Adopting simple measures such as not to litter garbage, which attracts dogs and pigs that in turn draw leopards, putting up thorny bushes around the house, keeping livestock locked up safely, will help prevent conflicts,” says Ghosalkar, who is carrying on the project work in Nasik.

Besides, another programme has children being appointed as leopard ambassadors wherein they create awareness.

The petite ecologist had no scary moments on field. “I never go alone while I am working. I always go with a guide. We know how to avoid them and they know how to avoid you,” says Vidya. Well-meaning advice such as this could well foster peaceful coexistence between man and feline.

The Waghoba Project

The thrust of the project launched in 2007 is how attack on humans can be avoided. Specifically the project aims to find out the density of leopards, their prey, the losses farmers face due to leopards and their attitudes towards the species. Various methods are being used to study their ecology like camera trapping to estimate population, scat analysis to obtain individual ID from DNA in scats, prey from scats, interviews with locals and GPS telemetry.

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