SGNP’s leopard safari proposal rejected

Central Zoo Authority officials felt that leopards would easily be able to jump out of the fencing done around them in the forest area. (Photo: Mrugesh Bandiwadekar)

The Central Zoo Authority (CZA) of India has denied permission for setting up a leopard safari at the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) following a series of surveys of the park. The reason for this is that the park may have to cut down trees in its dense forest area order to accommodate the leopards. The light weighted leopards could otherwise climb the trees and pose a threat to the tourists’ lives. The park authorities, however, have come up with an alternative and proposed to have a mixed herbivores animal safari.

CZA officials visited SGNP on September 6 to conduct a survey of the proposed area for leopard safari. The team along with the park officials carried out a day-long survey of the proposed area (near MAPCO). The team however, on its preliminary survey had indicated that the park had dense forest and hence had raised questions on the feasibility of a leopard safari.

The state government in December last year had announced to set up two leopard safaris in the state — at SGNP in Mumbai and in Chandrapur. Forest minister Sudhir Mungantiwar had informed the Legislative Assembly that the wild cats captured for attacking human beings would be kept in these leopard safaris. CZA has denied permission for the safari because, this would require all the full grown trees around the big cats kept in the forest area have to be cut. This is because the active and light weighted leopards would easily be able to jump out of the fencing done around them in the forest area. Krishna Tiwari, environmentalist and leopard expert, said, “Unlike tigers and lions who are heavy weighted animals, a leopard is a light weight animal and is capable of jumping off more than 20 feet easily. It is shy and nocturnal, hence getting its sighting too would be difficult.”

Sanjay Thakre, chief conservator of forest of State Zoo Authority (SZA), said, “Having the safari would have led to tree cutting in the park, due to which the idea of leopard safari has to be dropped. However, an alternate idea of mixed herbivores animal safari is proposed in the same area of the park.”

According to an SZA official, the mixed herbivores animals that would be featured in the safari would include those from the deer family.

A park senior official on condition of anonymity said, “The idea to feature these animals is not only to have a successful safari but also captive breeding. This would enable us to even release a few of them in to the park forest so that the 38 leopards (apart from the ones in cages) roaming in wild in the park premises would be able to feed on these animals and hence would not move out of the premises in search of food, thus reducing man-animal conflict further.”