India is the country with the largest number of wild cat species in the world, up to 13 species, and is also a "tiger and leopard country", in the Indian wild, it is not a rare thing to see tigers and leopards, and the ecological corridor between protected areas and protected areas is quite coherent.
In 2013, a male Bengal tiger set a record for a single walk of 650 kilometers, and this record was broken in 2020 by another male tiger, which traveled more than 2,000 kilometers in a single time, spanning multiple protected areas, during which only one cow was preyed on and did not hurt the people, so it is inevitable that there must be ecological corridors for him to walk.
Bengal tigers
Leopards in India are more common, we all know that India is the country with the most stray dogs in the world, there are about 300 million stray dogs in the world, and India alone accounts for 30 million.
In the streets of Mumbai, stray dogs flock to people for food, and at night, these stray dogs become food for leopards, who often sneak into the edge of the city to kill stray dogs at night.
In India, leopards prey on poultry and livestock is very common, leopard injuries also occur frequently, this is not, on March 11, 2021, there was another incident of leopard injuries in Madhya Pradesh, a leopard escaped from the reserve and entered a residential area, and has bitten 5 people, seeing here we can't help but wonder: Why do Indian leopards frequently hurt people, while our Chinese leopards rarely hurt people, and even fear people?
Leopards in India hurt people
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > Indian leopards have frequent contact with people, and Chinese leopards are unfamiliar with people</h1>
The first thing we need to know is that no matter where the leopard is, it belongs to the top beast, and once it feels that people pose a big threat to it, it will be attacked by it.
I think Indian leopards attack humans frequently, mainly because they are used to human existence. When we were children, we all learned the story of "The Donkey of Qian", and although the storyline was somewhat exaggerated, it also conveyed some useful information to us.
Leopards, like tigers, are solitary cats, cautious and fierce, and dare not attack directly when they first see large animals.
Leopard
Most predators, the standard for judging the strength of the opponent, is often the size, the size of humans exceeds the vast majority of wild animals, when shouting with open arms, often can scare off some beasts.
But if they come into contact with humans for a long time, the beasts of prey will find that humans are nothing remarkable, and even easier to catch than ungulates, so leopards after the first taste of sweetness will be happy to prey on humans.
Leopards are common in India, and they often roam around villages, in the mountains and fields, and even on the outskirts of India's largest city, Mumbai.
Leopards on the outskirts of Mumbai
On the other hand, most of China's leopards live in the southwest hinterland, the Taihang Mountains, the depths of the Qinling Mountains and other rare areas, and they have very little chance of contact with humans in their lifetime, and even most leopards have never seen humans in their entire lives.
Although over the years, the leopard population of the whole country has shown a recovery trend, but it is still far from the saturation of the environment, so it boils down to a sentence, India's leopard is very familiar with people, arousing the desire to attack the top beasts, while the Chinese leopard is very strange to people, and the strangeness makes it away from humans.
Leopard
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > survival pressure causes leopards to hurt people</h1>
However, the leopard is not as big as the tiger, humans for it, after all, is too large, most of the world's predators, have their fixed prey preferences, in the environment has not changed, this prey preference will not change much.
For example, the Siberian tiger in the Sikhot-Arin region prefers red deer, followed by wild boar and roe deer; the favorite prey of the local gray wolf is also red deer, followed by incense roe deer and wild boar.
Because lions live in groups and eat a large amount, their prey preferences are often some large ungulates; leopards are not large, and the conventional prey is mainly goats, musk deer, chamois, wild boar, monkeys and other small and medium-sized animals.
Leopards prey on
There is no shortage of wild prey in our country's leopards, in other words, the pressure to survive is not so great. Lack of prey, mainly look at two aspects, one is the distribution density of predators, the other is the species and density of ungulates, the most important habitat of China's golden leopard is in the southwest hinterland, Taihang Mountains, Qinling Mountains, and parts of the northeast, and the number is not very large.
In addition, thanks to the country's achievements in ecological environment construction and animal protection, there is no shortage of wild prey for leopards in China. Take the western Sichuan region, for example, ungulates are very rich in resources, rock sheep, forest musk, white-lipped deer, wild boar and other animals are available, enough for leopards to prey.
Lin Musk
India is different, with a lot of leopards, according to Xinhua News Agency, New Delhi, December 21, 2020 news can be seen, 2014-2018, India's leopard population increased by more than 60%, as of 2018, there are about 12852 leopards in the country, these leopards in addition to living in protected areas, in the suburbs, ecological forests also have a lot of distribution.
India is also a tiger country, there are about 114 national parks in the country, of which there are up to 50 tigers, and as of 2018, the number of Bengal tigers is as high as 2967, accounting for 75% of the total number of tigers in the world, while India also lives a large number of jackals, sloth bears and other beasts, so india's leopard survival pressure is not small.
When there is a high pressure to survive, they will actively seek more sources of prey, and India's large number of people engaged in underdeveloped agricultural labor have become the target of leopard attacks.
The leopard of India
Of course, the sources of survival pressure are multifaceted, leopards are also a highly territorial-minded species, and after homogeneous competition, losers are often driven to the edge of protected areas where wild prey is relatively scarce, which undoubtedly increases the leopard's chances of contact with humans.
Secondly, people who work in agriculture sometimes break into the lives of wild animals, disturb the lives of leopards, and are easy to cause attacks, especially when they collide with leopards with cubs, which are more likely to be attacked.
Indians chase leopards
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > survival experience is passed down from generation to generation</h1>
If one or two leopards attack humans, it doesn't have much consequence, because with the death of these leopards, the survival experience of "humans are easier to prey" is lost.
But the terrible thing is that more and more leopards know this truth, especially the female leopard, once they have tasted the sweetness of predation, will teach this experience to their descendants, and even cause this predatory culture to continue from generation to generation in the entire population, and the situation will be difficult to control. The emergence of a large number of man-eating tigers is such a principle.
Leopard outside a residential building in India
To solve the phenomenon of leopards hurting people, the most fundamental way is to let humans have less contact with these wild animals, such as demarcating protected areas, isolating with barbed wire, etc., but from the perspective of India's national conditions, it seems difficult to achieve, for the people, even if they know that there is a risk of being attacked by wild animals, but in order to make a living, they will also risk agricultural labor, and India's large number of leopards, obviously can not only survive in the protected area, to solve the "human-leopard conflict", there is a long way to go.
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