The death of three leopards in the undivided Anantapur district in one and a half months suggests that water resources in the wild are on the verge of drying up, with mercury levels slowly climbing from the second week of March. The fact that all three casualties occurred well away from the forests indicates that the animals strayed into human habitations in search of food and water, say experts.
On February 6, a leopard was fatally knocked down by an unidentified vehicle on the Bengaluru NH near Penukonda in Sri Sathya Sai district. On March 18, the carcass of a leopard was found in a decomposed state in the hillocks of Settur mandal of Anantapur district. On March 19, a leopard was electrocuted when it scaled a transformer at an agriculture field in Kuderu mandal of the same district. In all three incidents, forest officials ruled out the angle of poaching or hunting.
Anantapur and Sri Sathya Sai districts are known for perennial drought conditions around the year, with the two rivers of Chitravathi and Pennar witnessing modest inflows, that too only during the monsoon.
District Forest Officer (Anantapur) Vineet Kumar told The Hindu that the Anantapur region does not have any major forest cover. “It is quite depleted, and runs in patches. Wild animals, particularly the leopards, find shelter in the denuded forests atop hillocks, which mostly belong to the Revenue Department. The terrain forces the leopards to move from one place to the other. As such, they crisscross fields and roads,” he said.
The official said that despite the drought conditions and depleted forest cover, Anantapur region has seen a teeming population of leopards in recent years.
It is observed that the leopards have a good source of food in the region, thanks to the explosion of the blackbuck population. “Despite poor forest cover, we have teeming numbers of the blackbuck, which are predominantly found out of the forest areas,” Mr Vineet Kumar said.
The DFO said that the areas of Kalyanadurgam and Rayadurgam in Anantapur had seen frequent sightings of the leopards. “Now that the summer has set in, we are taking steps to arrange saucer pits and salt licks inside the forests, so that the leopards would not stray into human habitations,” he said.
Meanwhile, the official said that the Forest Department would soon conduct a census of the leopards in the district.
