This figure of 35 leopards does not include the leopard cubs that are roaming in the wild as well as those 15 leopards that are caged at the rescue centre inside the national park.
Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) has a very high density of leopards in the country. The park at Borivli has 21.55 leopards every 100 sq km. As per a study conducted in the last six months, there are 35 leopards in this one of a kind national park in the world.
This figure of 35 leopards does not include the leopard cubs that are roaming in the wild as well as those 15 leopards that are caged at the rescue centre inside the national park.
The study – 'Ecology of Leopard in Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Maharashtra with Special Reference to its abundance, prey selction and Food Habits' – was done by Nikit Surve under the supervision of Dr S Sathyakumar, Dr K Sankar and Dr Vidya Athreya. The institutions involved included Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun and Maharashtra Forest Department's SGNP.
The area covered for the study included Aarey Milk Colony, Nagla Block and SGNP through a systematic grid mapping wherein the entire national park was divided into grids of 2x2 km. Camera traps were put up wherein the total sampling period went on for 44 days. "The total sampling effort after considering all the functional cameras was 422 trap nights," reads the report by Surve.
The previous study done by Mumbaikars for SGNP in 2011 to ascertain leopard population had indicated a minimum leopard population of 21.
As per the latest study, 57% of the diet was from wild prey whereas 43% of the diet was from domestic prey. Dogs were the prime prey for the leopards followed by chital, sambar, langur, cat, wild pig, rodent, cattle, bonnect macaque, domestic fowl, goat, black napped hare and birds.
"The study suggests that the leopard is dependent on both wild as well as domestic prey. This in turn is responsible for the high density of leopards shown in the study area," concluded the report released on Tuesday.
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