The Indian Leopard

The Indian Leopardis one of the four big cats found in India, the others being the Asiatic Lion, The Bengal Tiger, The Snow Leopard. The Indian Leopard inhabits a wide range of habitats like the tropical rain forest, dry decidous, temperate and coniferous forests.

The leopard is the most adaptive of the cat family. Leopards due to the habitat loss and poaching face a severe threat. In many areas the leopard thrives alongside of human settlements preying on livestock resulting in human-leopard conflict. One such area happens to be Valparai. Almost every week there is an incident of leopard straying into the villages/houses.

I have had the pleasure of seeing these beautiful cats on four different occasions. This time around at Bandipur Tiger Reserve, we sighted a mother and cub lying on the jeep tracks. At the sound of our approaching jeep, both the cats ran into the bushes. The cub was peeping through the bushes and this was the only better shot I got of it. We heard the mom calling for her cub and though we could see her spots, it was difficult to get her on camera. After a wait for about 15 minutes, we decided to leave the cats to regroup.