The study was conducted in  the contiguous areas of Satpura National Park and Bori Wildlife Sanctuary to study the ecology of leopard. The probability of detection of leopards was calculated using program PRESENCE for the intensive study area of about 180 sq. km. This was done using repeated presence-absence sampling for pugmarks on 500 m sections of jeep tracks. Sampling was done in the winters and summers of 2004 and 2005. More than 100 sections of tracks were checked in each season for the presence of leopard pugmarks. Chronologically, the probability of detection changed from 19 percent in winter 2004 to 4 percent in summer 2005.

The density of leopard prey was estimated using line and vehicle transects. The results obtained from these methods were compared. Chital densities obtained from line and vehicle transects were 4.3 and 3.4; sambar 2.9 and 2.1; muntjak 1.1 and 1.6; langur 34.1 and 34.0, and wild pig 2.4 and 2.6 per sq. km. Only peafowl densities for the two methods were very different, being 1.0 and 5.2 per sq. km for line and vehicle transects respectively. For most species estimation using both these methods gave similar results. There seems to be a decreasing trend for densities of many prey species over the last four years, but this trend is not statistically significant. The implications of  prey availability and  leopard detection probability is discussed.
 

The ecology of the leopard in Satpura National Park and Bori Wildlife Sanctuary.

Sh. Qamar Qureshi & Dr. Ravi Chellam

Advait Edgaonkar, SRF

Grant-in-aid