The leopards of Mumbai: life and death among the city's 'living ghosts'

India’s second city is home to an estimated 20 million people ... and 21 leopards. The 250,000 residents with homes inside the boundary of Sanjay Gandhi national park must find a way to live with their big-cat neighbours

A young female leopard spotted near the Royal Palms apartments in Goregaon. Photograph: Zeeshan A Mirza

Elizabeth Soumya in Mumbai

Wednesday 26 November 2014  

Hawa hawa oh hawa … a 90s Hindi hit blares from the radio in Kusum’s mud house. “I play music till 1am every day,” says the elderly lady. She says she is not much of a music fan - but her loud playlist keeps the leopards away. Meanwhile, just down the road, 35-year-old Dilip Changverlekar recently renovated the house where his family has lived for generations. He added tin sheets to the roof and walls to make it difficult for leopards to climb.

Mumbai is India’s richest city and home to a human population of around 20 million, but it also contains one of the largest protected urban forests in the world. The Sanjay Gandhi national park (SGNP) spans 104 sq km - the size of 30 Central Parks - and is home to more than 1,000 species of plants and animals. Here in Chuna, a tribal hamlet of 40 houses inside the park’s boundary, seeing a leopard is not a scandal but a routine, and residents receive a visit from the big cats several times a week.

In 2012 a forest camera-trap counted as many as 21 leopards in the park, and footage of the big cats in the slums, residential complexes and schools of urban Mumbai has shaped what many think of SGNP’s leopards. It has also given the impression that the creatures are entering the city more often than ever before. But are there really more leopards?

Chuna Pada resident Kusum plays loud music to keep leopards away from her house. Photograph: Elizabeth Soumya

The leopards were here long before millions of people turned Mumbai (which once had a sizeable population of tigers, too) into a bustling megacity. The park’s peripheral areas have never been so densely populated, and Vidya Athreya, India’s leading expert on leopard-human conflict, thinks this has led to the increase in sightings.

“Eye shine” is the easiest way to spot the cats, who have a tapetum lucidum structure at the back of each eye that reflects light back and helps them see more clearly in the dark. “People used to go to bed earlier, and there weren’t so many vehicles or so many lights,” says Athreya.

The presence of leopards living alongside humans is a case of two highly adaptable species sharing space, says Athreya, who calls the animals “living ghosts” for their ability to be elusive.

The very idea that the leopard shouldn’t live near humans is a completely urban construct, he says. “If you got to rural India, people know leopards have always been around. The adivasi [ethnic and tribal groups of India] have always lived with them and see the animal as part of their cultural identity.”

The leopards come close to human settlements looking for food, says SGNP wildlife researcher and conservationist Krishna Tiwari. Around 90% of their diet consists of dogs, rodents and wild boar, with stray dogs - attracted by the garbage dumped on the edge of the park - accounting for 60%.
Mumbai’s leopards have generally coexisted peacefully with their human neighbours. But a spate of attacks a decade ago reinforced the notion of them as bloodthirsty man-eaters. Of the 176 reported attacks between 1991 to 2013, 84 occurred between 2002 and 2004. Nine people were killed by leopards in the month of June 2004 alone.

During this period, leopards rescued from other parts of Maharashtra state were being released in the SGNP. The authorities though the park would be a haven for leopards, but instead the relocated cats were forced to fight for territory and food. “What we ended up having in the park was stressed-out predators,” says Athreya. “Highly territorial animals who were displaced and had to find food in an unfamiliar place.”

Krishna Tiwari, a wildlife researcher and conservationist who grew up just outside the park. Photograph: Elizabeth Soumya

After the relocations stopped in 2006, the number of attacks decreased dramatically and there were no fatalities or injuries from leopard attacks in the Mumbai suburbs from 2009-11. Yet, since November 2011 there have been six fatalities; the last three deaths were all reported in Aarey Milk Colony, to the south of the SGNP. The most recent was in October 2013, when a seven-year-old boy was killed.

Tiwari, who grew up in a residential building just outside the SGNP, has worked in the park for almost two decades. The encroachment of the city today is unparalleled, he says. Illegal settlements - including nagars (settlements by non-indigenous people), padas (tribal settlements) and high-rise buildings - continue to swell in and around the park. More than 54 illegal settlements and two villages - with a combined population in excess of 250,000 - are inside the park itself.

With this encroachment of the city into the park, Athreya fears that conflict with humans is the prime threat to Mumbai’s leopard population. How people living around the park deal with the presence of these animals will determine the future for the big cats.

Residents of Chuna Pada, a tribal settlement inside the SGNP. Photograph: Elizabeth Soumya

In space-deprived Mumbai, any open land attracts a premium, and the wall around the national park is “for people to stay out, not for leopards to stay in,” Tiwari says. “Real estate ads sell ‘nature’ as if the park is their private property. People want to live close to nature, but don’t want to live with the leopards that come with it.”

He now limits his conflict awareness to those living in informal settlements, such as tribal hamlets and slums. “If you are in a building there’s no need to worry,” he says. “All attacks on humans have happened in [slum] areas, except one in Powai.” In settlements that lack toilets or electricity, 80% of the leopard attacks happen when people go out to answer nature’s call after dark.

Chandunushay Jadhav lives in Aarey Milk Colony, where a record high number of leopards attacks have been recorded, including the most recent death. But Jadhav says there are more important things to worry about than leopard attacks: “Don’t tell us to be scared of the leopard, give us facilities,” says the 64-year-old, who sleeps in a doorless structure on his farm where three leopards are regular visitors. “I am not afraid, I don’t even have electricity. Don’t tease it, don’t disturb it and it won’t attack you.”

Jadhav knows that leopards have roamed the area for generations and doesn’t think the creatures will disappear anytime soon. In the old times, the cats had enough space in the jungle and ample prey, so “why are we making towers where the leopards are? The leopards will visit Mumbai again and again because this is where they live,” he says. “It is really their home.”

This article was commissioned as part of the Guardian’s Citizen Reporting Programme

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