LEOPARD ATTACKS IN THE MUMBAI (BOMBAY) AREA

LEOPARDS TERRORIZE MUMBAI

Leopards are increasingly venturing into populated areas as their habitat becomes depleted. Video footage from Mumbai in 2013 showed a leopard creeping into an apartment block complex and snatching a small dog. Robin Pagnamenta wrote in Times of London, “Leopards are terrorising people in a Mumbai suburb as the city's overflowing slums press further into India's biggest urban nature reserve. In the northern district of Borivali, children are being kept inside after dusk as residents say leopards are feasting on stray dogs, chickens and goats, as well as at local rubbish tips. "We see them almost every day," said Vilas Rajput, 35, a labourer who lives in Kaju Pada, a slum area straddling the border of Sanjay Gandhi National Park, an expanse of lush forest surrounded by sprawling suburbs and shantytowns. "These days we only come here in a group and we don't let our children go out in the evening," he said. [Source: Robin Pagnamenta, The Times, October 06, 2011]

“Nancy Nagwekar, a resident of the Girishikar housing complex, which is only 15 meters from the edge of the park and on land that was forest until four years ago, also fears for her children. "The leopards took a dog on Tuesday," she said. "We found the carcass in the morning. "People are frightened. There are guys who work late shifts and call-centre workers who feel threatened when they come home at night."

“Wildlife experts say the problem is not leopards but people. They say that at least 200,000 humans beings have steadily encroached into the park, living in slums which are illegal but are protected by local politicians who rely on the votes of the residents. Geeta Seshamani, a co-founder of Wildlife SOS, said: "The slums are spreading into prime forest land so it's a situation man has created. "The buffer between the park and the city has disappeared so it is not the leopard's fault. He has just found himself in the same place as a lot of people. It's a high-stress situation for a leopard." Mumbai's population has almost doubled in the past 20 years, to 21 million. About half live in slums, many of which are on government land, in parks or mangrove swamps.

“About 35 leopards are thought to live in the park. The leopard population in the park has been swollen by the release into the park of captured leopards from other regions. Vidya Atherya, the city’s leading leopard expert said: “that is likely to have worsened the problem because leopards are territorial and captured leopards often get injured and stressed. They are unlikely to know where they can get prey. This place has always had leopards, long before the city grew up here. What has happened is that people have hemmed them in. The leopards do come out of the forest to take dogs and to feed on garbage, but there us growing evidence that, if left alone, they will leave us alone.”

Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Mumbai — Where Leopards and People Meet

Richard Conniff and Steve Winter wrote in National Geographic:We were sitting in the dark, waiting for the leopards beside a trail on the edge of India’s Sanjay Gandhi National Park, 40 square miles of green life in the middle of the sprawling gray metropolis of Mumbai. A line of tall apartment buildings stood just opposite, crowding the park border. It was 10 p.m., and through the open windows came the sounds of dishes being cleaned and children being put to bed. Religious music floated up from a temple in the distance. Teenage laughter, a motorcycle revving. The hum and clatter of 21 million people, like a great machine. Somewhere in the brush around us, the leopards were listening too, waiting for the noise to die down. Watching. [Source: Richard Conniff & Steve Winter, National Geographic December 10, 2015]

“About 35 leopards live in and around this park. That’s an average of less than 2.5 square miles of habitat apiece, for animals that can easily range ten miles in a day. These leopards also live surrounded by some of the world’s most crowded urban neighborhoods, housing 78,000 people or more per square mile. (That’s nearly twice the population density of New York City.) And yet the leopards thrive. Part of their diet comes from spotted deer and other wild prey within the park. But many of the leopards also work the unfenced border between nature and civilization. While the city sleeps, they slip through the streets and alleys below, where they pick off dogs, cats, pigs, rats, chickens, and goats, the camp followers of human civilization. They eat people too, though rarely.

“They are fearful of people, and with good reason. Humans make fickle companions, admiring, rescuing, and even revering leopards in some contexts, and reviling them in many others — shooting them, snaring them, poisoning them, hanging them, even dousing a trapped leopard with kerosene, striking a match, and calmly filming as the animal writhes and whirls in a ball of fire, dying, but not nearly fast enough. Conservationists call leopards the world’s most persecuted big cat.

Coexistence of Leopards and People Near Mumbai

Much of the time, even in Mumbai, leopards and humans coexist peacefully. Vidya Athreya, a biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, has carefully studied this relationship. Richard Conniff and Steve Winter wrote in National Geographic: As elsewhere in India, it begins with reliance on open trash and meat market dumps, which support a thriving community of stray dogs, feral pigs, and other small animals. Federal law and an influential animal-rights movement prevent removal of street dogs. So the dogs and other domestic animals in turn support a thriving community of leopards. (They made up 87 percent of the leopards’ diet in Athreya’s study.) [Source: Richard Conniff & Steve Winter, National Geographic December 10, 2015]

“Irrigation schemes introduced since the 1980s also help attract leopards. Among other crops, sugarcane is now common in formerly dry areas such as Akole and the Junnar region, and this tall, thick grass provides a perfect hiding place for leopards — close to villages, garbage heaps, and dogs. It is an ecosystem.

“Leopards are not as bloodthirsty as we think,” said Athreya. “They are reasonable at some level.” Anthropologist Sunetro Ghosal, who has also worked in Akole, described “a history of sharing space” and even “mutual accommodation,” leopards and humans alike going out of their way to avoid confrontations. (Possibly as a form of insurance, people in the region treat leopards and tigers as gods, or waghobas, and make propitiatory offerings at small waghoba shrines.)

Leopards Killed 12 People in Bombay Area in 2003

In December 2003, the BBC reported: “Residents in parts of India's business capital, Bombay (Mumbai), are living in fear of an unusual foe - leopards. The big cats have been entering busy residential areas and attacking humans. Over the past year, 12 people, mostly children, have been killed in some 22 attacks near the sprawling national park in the city's Powai area. Five-year-old Anmol Bansal, who lived in a posh high-rise apartment, was one of the latest victims. ,When darkness falls, we take our children inside because no one knows when the leopards will appear [Source: December , 23, 2003]

"I cannot believe that such a thing can happen," Anmol's distraught mother, Neeru Bansal, told BBC News Online. "The park officials say that the [residential] buildings have been built on encroached land... and the state government is unable to provide security to the citizens." Fears after dark The leopards sneak into Powai from the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, an urban lung which covers 100 square kilometres and is a haven for wildlife - including leopards. Residents in the posh neighbourhoods of Powai are up in arms

This patch of greenery dotted with lakes and caves is a boon to the polluted and congested city. The lakes are, in fact, natural reservoirs for a largely water-starved metropolis. But residents of Powai have been living in fear of leopard attacks and are scared to venture out after dark. Puklit Mathur, a mother of two children, is one of them. She watches over her two children like a hawk - even when they are playing inside the boundaries of the high-rise apartment block where they live. "I have to be with them all the time, even when they come down to the playground. When darkness falls, we take our children inside because no one knows when the leopards will appear," says Mrs Mathur. Traps The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), a prestigious engineering school, is located in Powai and is a favourite haunt of the leopards. Eight out of the 13 leopards captured in Powai this year have been caught inside the school's campus. Most of those killed have been children

"Almost every other day we see a leopard here," says the school's security officer, Rajesh Dhankar. The campus has been lit up brightly, and security men carrying fireworks keep a round the clock vigil to scare off the cats. The students have even designed their own cages to trap the leopards. Park officials blame the rising number of humans living around the park for this man-animal conflict. "There are thousands of people trespassing into the park," says senior park official AR Bharati. Mr Bharati is also critical of new buildings around the park. "When builders advertise the flats, they tell their clients that they will get beautiful views of the park from their apartments. When it comes to security, they cry foul and ask us to remove the leopards." Local anger Now the forest department is planning to build a wall more than three metres high and 90 kilometres long around the park to keep the leopards in. , It is really weird that in a city like Bombay we have to live in fear of leopards

Officials are also trying to move some of the leopards out of the park. Meanwhile, students at IIT are busy totting up their leopard sightings. "I am probably the only student who has yet to see a leopard. They have paid my hostel a visit at least four times, and graced the football field once," says a disappointed Anuj Pradhan. This year the school's popular annual festival had a cat called Claws as its mascot. Powai residents are not amused, however. Shikha Thomas, one local, says she is angry at the indifference of the authorities. "It is really weird that in a city like Bombay we have to live in fear of leopards. It's worse than living in a village," she says. "We have bought a house here, so we have to stay here. Where can we go?"

The attacks continued in 2005. In February a leopard killed a child near the Sanjay Gandhi National Park four days after a leopard mauled a guard on the Indian Institute of Technology campus. In December 2005, Puja Pawar, a four-year-old girl, was dragged from outside her hut and killed by a leopard in the Manpada area of Thane district, and 50-year-old Laxman Choudhary was mauled.

Reasons Behind the Leopard Attacks in Borivali Park Near Mumbai

The Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) at Borivali, 18 kilometers north of Mumbai, is the only national park in the world which is situated right in the heart of urban development. Spread over 104 sq km, the park is home to 40 leopards, among the many other species of plants and animals that take shelter here. Over the past few years, the city has seen a rise in the number of leopard attacks in and around the park. While the reasons for these attacks are varied, and to some extent obvious, solutions to avoid these attacks have not been readily forthcoming. [Source: Times News Network, October 17, 2003]

Richard Conniff and Steve Winter wrote in National Geographic:“To understand where the human-leopard relationship goes awry, Athreya investigated a rash of attacks that occurred in the Junnar region from 2001 to 2003. In what seemed at first to be a coincidence, the forest department had been trapping leopards, more than a hundred of them, from problem areas in Junnar, mainly after attacks on livestock. Those animals got released in forests an average of 20 miles from the capture sites — a common technique for dealing with problem carnivores worldwide. [Source: Richard Conniff & Steve Winter, National Geographic December 10, 2015]

But after the relocations, Athreya and her team discovered, attacks on humans in Junnar increased by 325 percent, and the percentage of those attacks that were fatal doubled. “It was a typical case of the messed-up mind of a cat,” Athreya said. Messed up, that is, by the trauma of being caught in a box trap, handled by humans, and dumped in an unfamiliar landscape and in territories already occupied by other leopards. The outbreak of attacks wasn’t, after all, a result of the leopards’ innate ferocity, according to Athreya and her co-authors: “Translocation induced attacks on people.”

In October 2002, the Times News Network reported: One set of experts believe that human disturbances around the park have led to a drop in the prey base, resulting in the leopard looking elsewhere for prey (a problem, compounded by the rise in the leopard population). Others, believe that the leopards have undergone a behavioural change, with access to easy prey, such as stray dogs, poultry, goats, causing them to ignore traditional prey such as the chital, sambar and the wild boar. “When an animal has access to easy prey, why should it hunt animals such as the sambar, chital or wild boar,” reasons PS Yaduvendu, chief conservator of forests, Wildlife. He believes that the problem may have started in the early 90s when the Mafco factory was still operating in the national park. The factory would process meat and the residue would be dumped outside. This served as an easy meal for the animals, hampering their hunting skills,” he said.

Ravi Chellam, a wildlife biologist, says that there is no permanent solution to the problem, unless the park area is increased. Ideally, a leopard needs about 10-15 sq km with ample prey, water and shelter to exist comfortably. There are far too many leopards in the small patch of land at SGNP. In a given situation, if the population of leopards increased, the animals would move through a natural corridor and disperse to other areas. However, there is no way out for these leopards, as the park is surrounded by development on every side.”

Environmentalists say a slew of property projects and thousands of people squatting illegally in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park have intensified the ancient struggle between man and beast. P.N. Munde, Sanjay Gandhi National Park’s deputy conservator of forests, told Indian news service IANS. that man-animal conflict is only going to increase as Mumbai's population grows. "The leopard is a territorial animal and we cannot expect it to stay in one area. It has to move around," Munde said. The park is located about 25 miles from Mumbai.

Leopard Attacks Two in Khopat, Mumbai

In December 2007, Express News Service reported: “Residents of Khopat in Thane had an uninvited guest, which left them scared but also led to excitement in the area. A leopard accidentally strayed into Khopat from the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, some 3 km away across the busy Eastern Express Highway, early in the morning. The leopard attacked two people and the forest department staff struggled for more than 18 hours before they could tranquilise it late in the evening. [Source: Express News Service, December 20, 2007]

First spotted at 5.30 am, the leopard first pounced on Sharddha Govelkar. Her husband said: “Sharddha was knocking at the door around 5.30 am. Our two-year-old son Aryan was also with her. Suddenly, the leopard pounced on her from behind, but she saved Aryan.” The Govelkars live in the Gokuldaswadi area of the Khopat. Sharddha received injures on her head and neck, he said, adding that the leopard fled after she started screaming.

At around 9.30 am, workers at the Shreeram Timber godown in Bata compound had just started the wood cutting machine when the leopard began to roar. The scared workers fled, but locked the doors of godown. The owner immediately informed the Naupada police. By the time the police arrived, the locals and the media had crowded the spot. The leopard then attacked Nandu Kumawat, a local resident, who went looking for it despite the police warning him. He sustained injuries on his left hand and forehead.

The forest officials were not unclear how the leopard strayed so far from the jungle. The SGNP is some 3 km from the spot where the leopard was first spotted. Also, the area adjoining the park is thickly populated with housing complexes and slums.”It could have crossed the Eastern Express Highway when there isn’t much traffic on the road,” said Bhaskarao Walimbe, the Deputy Conservator of Forest (DCF), who was monitoring the operation to trap the animal.

Initially, the forest officials set up a trap and lured the leopard with a dog. They even tried to scare it with firecrackers, but even that proved futile. The forest officially finally managed to tranquillise the leopard around 8 pm. “When the trap did not work, we decided to tranquillise it in the night,” Walimbe said. “People should not be surprised if a leopard strays outside the park as one cannot control it,” said S K Khetrapal, chief conservator of forest. He, however, warned: “People should take care as leopards can stray outside and attack people in the night or early morning.”He said the forest department was also building a wall adjoining the Ghodbunder Road.

This is the second time in a week when a leopard strayed out of the park and attacked humans. Last week, a leopard had attacked a woman and her daughter. On Sunday, another leopard was hit by a vehicle on the busy Ghodbunder Road.

Leopard Attacks on Children Near Munbai and a Government Payment of $12,500

In May 2015, in the Junnar countryside, 95 miles east of Mumbai, Richard Conniff and Steve Winter wrote in National Geographic,: at about 10:30 on a Sunday night, a two-year-old named Sai Mandlik was kneeling on a bench on this veranda and running a toy bus along the top of the wall. His grandmother relaxed on a daybed beside him. In the tall grass 20 or 30 yards away, a leopard spotted something: a head moving back and forth, not much larger than the bonnet macaques that are among its natural prey. It began to stalk. If he was lucky, the boy never saw the leopard that snatched him over the wall and carried him away through the fields. His grandmother screamed. The rest of the family came pouring out into the night. They were too late. [Source: Richard Conniff & Steve Winter, National Geographic December 10, 2015]

Late, a forest official introduced himself (“I am also from a rural area; I am not somebody coming in from above”) and explained that he did not mean the compensation payment, about $12,300, as a substitute for their loss but as an acknowledgment from the government, which is responsible for the leopards. One of the local officials came to inspect the check, and they engaged in a cordial dance, with each of them saying the other should present it.

“The family made a few small requests, and the forest official said he would try to help, and then it was over. Four miles down the road there was another house to visit with much the same story. When such leopard attacks occur, they tend to come in terrifying waves. Sai Mandlik’s death was the third attack in the Junnar area in just over two weeks, and the second fatality.

Efforts to Reduce Leopard Attacks in the Mumbai Area

To address the leopard attack issue, Richard Conniff and Steve Winter wrote in National Geographic: Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Mumbai stopped allowing itself to be used as a dumping ground for relocated leopards. (Like Junnar, it was also experiencing an outbreak of deadly attacks.) The city’s media took up the idea that relocations were more dangerous than the leopards. Workshops for apartment dwellers around the park, and for residents of slums inside the park borders, began to promulgate the larger idea that merely seeing a leopard in the neighborhood does not constitute “conflict.” Removing leopards — the first thing city dwellers often demand — disrupts the social system and opens the territory for new leopards that may be less experienced at the tricky business of “mutual accommodation.” [Source: Richard Conniff & Steve Winter, National Geographic December 10, 2015]

The workshops also emphasized the human side of mutual accommodation, including basic precautions like keeping children indoors at night. (Larger public health measures would also help, including garbage removal, provision of toilets, and removal of street dogs, but economic and political factors often put them out of reach.) The abiding message was that leopards in Mumbai, Akole, and other areas are not “strays” or “intruders.” They are fellow residents.

“Living by these ideas has not, however, always been easy. This is especially so for forest department rangers who show up in the aftermath of a leopard attack, and find themselves besieged and even beaten by enraged residents demanding action. They also come under pressure from local politicians. So the traps still come out, to give people the illusion of something being done, of safety, even if the actual result is to increase their danger. A few “problem” leopards end up being warehoused at crowded “rescue” facilities around the country, though there is in fact no way to identify a problem animal, short of catching it with its victim. A scapegoat will do.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Animal Diversity Web animaldiversity.org ; National Geographic, Live Science, Natural History magazine, David Attenborough books, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Discover magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, Wikipedia, The Guardian, Top Secret Animal Attack Files website and various books and other publications.

Last updated January 2025