Some of Mumbai’s poorest residents are being stalked by big cats but, as Tom Parker discovers, the root of the problem lies with humans
PHOTOGRAPHY TOM PARKER
I’m startled by a sudden rustling behind me. I turn to meet the piercing stare of an animal otherwise completely hidden in the dry forest thicket. I fear the worst – that we’re being stalked by a dangerous predator.
“It’s only a deer,” says Krishna Tiwari, who is more interested in what looks like a dry piece of black mud on the path in front of us. The forest officer scoops up what is, in fact, leopard droppings and carefully places them into a clear plastic sample bag.“By analysing what they eat we can learn everything about their behaviour.”
The key ingredient Tiwari is looking for is domestic dog. Apparently, domestic dogs account for 80 percent of the big cats’ diet. “Deer are difficult for the leopards to catch but dogs are easy prey because they freeze when they see a leopard,” he explains.
If the idea of leopards preying on domestic dogs sounds a little strange, then the arena in which these two species meet is also highly unusual. Sanjay Gandhi National Park is a 104 square kilometre tract of untamed wilderness that is surrounded on three sides by the third largest conurbation on the planet, Mumbai. The park is 30 times the size of New York’s Central Park and is home to eight endemic species; perhaps most significantly – certainly as far as the local dog population is concerned – it also has the highest density of leopards anywhere on earth.
But it’s a more recent addition to the park’s ecosystem that has triggered problems. Over the past 30 years tens of thousands of migratory labourers have made the park their home, ringing the outer fringes with temporary slum shelters. It was the initial influx of immigrants that catalysed Indira Gandhi’s government to declare the wilderness a national park back in 1982, but this didn’t stop them coming. It is the dogs that scavenge off the humans’ garbage that provide the increasingly abundant source of food for the leopards. And as the felines become less scared of humans, it isn’t just the dogs that are an easy meal.
In 2004 the park came under the scrutiny of national media when 22 slum dwellers were killed by leopards in just one year. Most of the attacks were a case of “mistaken identity” – apparently, when sitting a person’s eye level is the same as a dog’s. Authorities implemented an awareness programme to reduce attacks through simple, practical means, advising people not to go out after sunset and to make sure children walked in groups.
Still, public outcry forced the incumbent government to take more drastic action. Its response was to capture the 22 “guilty” leopards, albeit without any scientific proof they were the man-eaters. (Today the Forestry Department remains silent over exactly what happened to these animals as only four were released back into the wild.) With the population of felines nearly halved, the attacks stopped. But it was a short-term solution. Although no one has yet died, over the past 12 months a number of new attacks have occurred. “The depleted population has been breeding heavily and the young are now old enough to hunt,” says Krishna Tiwari. “We may be in a very dangerous position once again.”
The threat of new attacks is only a side effect of the larger issue – namely that too many people are living inside the national park. In the past 20 years Sanjay Gandhi has become a battleground for conservationists, human rights groups, slum dwellers, property developers and anyone else with a vested interest in some of the world’s most expensive real estate. Throughout the 1990s, environmental groups filed a number of legal cases against the government of Maharashtra demanding the forced removal of 70,000 slum hutments because they were deemed to encroach illegally on national park territory. In 1995 the court ruled in their favour and ordered the demolition of all the settlements within 18 months.
The decision was met by a flurry of counter petitions from social activist groups. One such group is Nivara Hukk Suraksha Samiti, an organisation that safeguards the rights of those living in temporary shelters. “You can’t talk about protecting the environment when you are violating human rights,” says NHSS founder PK Das. “You can’t force people out of their homes when the government doesn’t have an affordable housing policy for the poor.”
Despite the counter protests, in 1999 some 49,000 hutments were demolished. About a third of the slum dwellers were rehoused in another part of the city; the rest were left homeless. Then in 2003 the government changed from the BJP to the Congress; the new ruling party needed the slum dwellers’ votes to secure its powerbase and in exchange it allowed the return of the evictees, who promptly rebuilt new dwellings in the same places.
Standing high on a ridge in the eastern sector of the park, I’m given an insight into why conservationists continue to fight for it. As we nudge the summit, two silver shimmering blankets emerge in the foreground – Tulsi and Bihar lakes. These two reservoirs provide nearly 10 percent of Mumbai’s water supply, as well as helping prevent the city from flooding during the monsoon. The forest acts as a cleansing filter for this most polluted of cities, cooling the air (the average temperature inside the park is four degrees lower than in the city) and reducing the risk of respiratory diseases.
“The park is our insurance against climate change. It is a supreme act of stupidity to treat it with disrespect,” says Bittu Sahgal, editor of Sanctuary Magazine, who for over 25 years has campaigned to stop human encroachments into the wilderness. “It’s impossible to put a commercial value on something so important to sustaining human existence in the city.”
Dusk is approaching as we descend towards the bright lights of Mumbai. A series of forest fires light our way – started by the local timber mafia to give them better access to the bamboo and hard wood trees they illegally harvest. Forest officer Krishna Tiwari is all too aware that it’s prime feeding time for the park’s leopards, and we’re not setting a good example to the people living in the slums.
He is level-headed about the position the park finds itself in. “If the people weren’t encroaching on the land here, the leopard-human conflict wouldn’t exist,” he laments. “But when you’re in a country as populous as India that’s asking for the impossible.” |
