Experts term forest department's proposal of sterilization an 'infertile idea'

While the Pune forest department is looking at sterilisation of leopards to manage its rising population as well as human-leopard conflict, wildlife experts and top wildlife veterinarians have called the idea "unfeasible and a logistical nightmare".

A senior wildlife veterinarian who has worked extensively in both Central and Northeast India said that if the forest department thinks that by castrating male leopards they would be able to manage future population then they are completely mistaken, scientifically it will never work.

"In case they opt for sterilisation of female leopards, which might show success in controlling the future population scientifically, trapping leopards for the procedure would not be easy. Also, one cannot overlook the trauma the leopards would go through due to the captivity required for the post-operative care," said the vet.

Another wildlife vet said that the whole sterilisation programme would be extremely costly and cumbersome. "The forest department should ideally try immune contraception, which involves injecting contraceptive vaccine that leads an animal to become infertile temporarily and its effect wanes out after two-and-a-half to three years," he said.

Meanwhile, a Mumbai-based conservationist said that given the fact that most of the leopard population in and around Junnar was living in human-dominated landscape including sugarcane fields, merely controlling their population would not reduce the conflict as the leopards would not lose their tooth and nails. "Forest department should think of staff capacity building, setting up leopard rescue teams, granting quick compensation and more importantly create constant awareness on co-existing with leopards in villages that report conflict regularly," he said.

Vets Suggest

The forest department should ideally try immune contraception, which involves injecting contraceptive vaccine that makes an animal to infertile temporarily