A forest division in Assam has initiated the State’s first leopard census to map the habitat and routes of the spotted cat and establish standards to be followed for urban planning.
The exercise, involving parleys with people in urban settlements and villages under the North Kamrup Forest Division, would be conducted over six months.
The division covers urban, semi-urban and rural areas on the northern bank of the Brahmaputra river facing Guwahati, once a leopard domain.
Divisional Forest Officer Sunnydeo Choudhary said mapping the leopard’s territories was necessary in view of the increasing man-animal conflicts due to rapid infrastructure development.
“Leopards prefer the fringe areas of jungles and often raid human settlements for food. The objective of this exercise was to map their population, habitat and movement routes for better planning of human settlements,” he said.
Mr. Choudhary said the leopard habitat in non-forest areas gets reduced with every infrastructure project.
“We should be able to tell the government how to plan the infrastructure projects once we have a fair idea about the status of the leopard,” he said.
The preliminary work involving field visits, sign survey and awareness campaign has started. Data from about 50 cameras to be set up at strategic locations will be collected every seven days.
The area to be covered includes the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and the Indian Institute of Technology-Guwahati.
The camera trap will begin on February 7 after the detailed plan is laid out.
