While offering vital clues to conflict resolution, the paper makes a few unsupported claims.
The population data presented in the paper establishes that leopards can live in sugarcane fields (study site).
The paper then refers to unpublished data on low conflict. This establishes the leopard's adaptability including its tolerance of human presence. As an extension of this, the paper rightly claims that leopards, unless subject to random management interventions, are not necessarily a threat to human safety.
At this point, the paper shifts to human aspects of the issue and makes a series of unsupported claims, starting with "“This study shows that leopards can persist in the human-modified landscapes and is possibly dependent mainly on the social tolerance.”
There is nothing in the paper to indicate any degree of social tolerance. Low instances of conflict does not necessarily indicate high social tolerance. To ascertain that, one needs to estimate the frequency of human-leopard interface at a place and what percentage of these interfaces triggers conflict.
For example, leopards and humans may come face to face 100 times a day in a 100 sq km area A and get into conflict only on 15 occasions. In an equivalent area B, the number of face-offs may be as low as 10 a day with 5 incidents of conflict. While A (15 cases) certainly sees more conflict than B (5 cases), it is also more tolerant (15% against B’s 50%).
In this context, the paper also fails identify (or even the necessity to identify) the factors responsible for low conflict in the study area. This is surprising since the paper reports high conflict almost everywhere else. In a strange coincidence, the paper also fails to elaborate on the nature of the study area: sugarcane plants offers dense cover and the crop is harvested in batches at long intervals, ensuring months of uninterrupted privacy. Better cover possibly means fewer chances of exposure during passive day hours and therefore less instances of conflict.
Only if there is reliable data on the frequency of human-leopard encounters in sugarcane fields, a comparative study in a non-sugarcane cropland may explain how a reduction in cover affects the intensity of conflict – and the density of leopards – outside PAs.
Till such studies are conducted, singling out either tolerance or quality of vegetation cover or any third factor as the "main" reason for the high leopard density and low conflict in the study area is uncalled for. But the paper harps on, almost ideologically, on the merits and potential of social tolerance without bothering to define, establish or quantify it in the first place.
One hopes subsequent studies by this very able scientists will look into these issues more objectively. But the claims made in the present paper indicate that most conclusions may have already been drawn.
For my detailed take: http://www.firstpost.com/...
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