Journal de recherche médico-légale

Curtailing Human-Leopard Conflict Using Wildlife Forensics: A Case Study from Himachal Pradesh, India

Abstract

Puneet Pandey, Vipin Sharma, Sujeet Kumar Singh, Deepa Goel and Surendra Prakash Goyal

Recent changes in the land use pattern have severely impacted wildlife, specifically large carnivores like leopards, by reducing natural habitat and prey base. Being highly adaptable, with a distribution more outside than inside the protected areas, leopard very often attacks human and livestock. In human-leopard conflicts, once an animal is declared as man-eater, it is either translocated or killed by officials as per Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972 of India. Identification of conflicting leopard is very difficult and sometimes lead to the castigation of innocent animal. Here, we describe the individualization of a leopard from one such human-leopard conflict in Bilaspur district of Himachal Pradesh, India using modern molecular genetic techniques. The methodology suggested in this study would be of great importance in correct identification of conflicting animals.