Gurgaon: The forest department has proposed to conduct a study to find out numbers of leopard, hyena and other animals living in Gurgaon part of the Aravalis, the move coming in the wake of the recent rise in leopard sightings and incidents of man-animal conflict.As per the proposal, which was sent to the department's state headquarters in Chandigarh earlier this month, wildlife officials are planning to assess leopard distribution, prey density, and thereby establish a relationship between the prey density and the movement pattern of big cats in the region.These apart, the department also proposes to study variation in types of preys available across the landscape and most importantly, delineate the leopard corridor from Mangar Bani to Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary."Leopards move out of the protected areas because of fragmentation of habitat, depletion of prey base, easy availability of livestock, demographic and social changes, increase in the density of big cats in some protected areas, territoriality and mutual exclusion etc. These dispersed leopards then adapt to the agro-settlement system. They lift cattle and sometimes attack humans. This creates an antipathy among local people towards conservation of leopards," reads the proposal prepared by the wildlife officials in Gurgaon district."Leopards are distributed throughout India... yet no concrete data exists on the overall size of its population. We have already carried out opportunistic camera trapping and got interesting visuals of leopards moving very close to human habitations. This has made the background for a study of leopards in this landscape for a longer duration."Vinod Kumar, conservator of forest, Gurgaon circle, said the study would help arrive at a proper estimation of the total population of leopards in the area."The study will help find out populations of leopard, hyena and other species of animals and birds. Apart from these, it is also important to know the movement pattern of leopards, and identify and delineate the leopard movement corridor. It will help us build strategies so that any kind of human-animal conflict can be avoided in the area," he added.In the last one-and-a-half years, the wildlife department confirmed at least 13 sightings of leopards in different parts of Gurgaon. Also, villagers claimed to have seen many more in Sohna, Raisina Hills, Mangar, Faridabad, Asola Bhatti and Manesar.The department also conducted five successful rescue operations in the last one year.However, the deaths of two leopards have also been reported. On November 24, a four-year-old leopard was found dead in a forest near Bhango village, while local people killed a leopard in Mandawar after it attacked eight persons in the village in November 2016.

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