Status Of Leopards In India 2022:
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has released a report on the Status of Leopards in India 2022. The survey covered 20 States of India, and focussed on about 70% of the animals’ expected habitat.
- The Union Government, while commemorating the 50th anniversary of Project Tiger, has approved the establishment of the International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA) with headquarters in India with a one-time budgetary support of Rs.150 crore for a period of five years from 2023-24 to 2027-28.
Highlights of the Report on the Status of Leopards in India 2022:
- India’s leopard population rose by 8% from 12,852 in 2018 to 13,874 in 2022.
- About 65% of the leopard population is present outside protected areas in the Shivalik landscape. Only about a third of the leopards are within protected areas.
- The Shivalik landscape refers to the outermost range of the Himalayas, known as the Shivalik Hills or the Shivalik Range.
- This range extends across several states in northern India, including Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, and parts of Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh.
- Central India shows a stable or slightly growing population of leopards (2018: 8071, 2022: 8820), Shivalik hills and Gangetic plains experienced decline (2018: 1253, 2022: 1109).
- In Shivalik hills and Gangetic plains, there is a 3.4% decline per annum, while the largest growth rate was in Central India and Eastern Ghats of 1.5%.
- Madhya Pradesh has the highest number of leopards (3,907), followed by Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu.
- In Odisha the number of leopards dropped from 760 in 2018 to 562 in 2022, and in Uttarakhand, the population declined from 839 in 2018 to 652 in 2022.
- Kerala, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, and Goa too reported population declines.
