Loss and gain with having a leopard around the farm

I was about to go meet my nephew, Balu, when my father told me that a leopard — perhaps the same one that I had photographed — had killed one of Balu’s cows the previous night. I left home but then lingered in the front yard, wondering if Balu would be upset with me because he knew that I was fond of the leopard. Balu and I were almost the same age and had grown up together. He was a hard-working farmer and unlikely to let something this serious pass.

The first time I heard of this leopard was when Balu had come home to deliver something from the farm and saw a picture of a leopard on my laptop. He said there was one in the ravine near our Lekurwali farm, the one that he managed and shared a portion of the produce with my father. This particular farm was adjacent to the Ajanta reserve forest. He was amused that I was so curious about leopards.

My father told him that I was planning on studying them in the Himalayas for a PhD. He said he had heard of people going to the Himalayas for tirth yatra and tapasya. Going all the way to study leopards was a new one for him. “Anyway, why go all the way when there was one right by our farm,” he said half-jokingly.

I tried to explain to him the distinction between a snow leopard and a common leopard. I told him snow leopards were adapted to living at high elevations with limited oxygen and intense cold.

“Then, the common leopard must also be adapted to the heat of our Maharashtra summer,” he remarked. He went on to tell me how he believed that this leopard near our farm was old.

The next time I returned to our farm a year later, Balu said he hadn’t seen the leopard in many months and suspected that he was dead. He was most surprised when I asked him if he suspected that someone had killed the leopard. He said nobody around here had a gun and a poisoned leopard would be found out.

I frequented the Lekurwali farm over the next two years. I would regularly see wild boars, four-horned antelopes and nilgai, but never a leopard.

Balu would usually be milking his cows and buffaloes around the time that I returned from the farm and passed by his gotha (animal shed). He always asked me about the animals I saw. If I reported nilgai or langurs, he would send one of his people to shoo them away. He would then make a trip himself to make sure that the crop-raiders were gone. Then, the first time I saw this new leopard was when I was returning from the farm. I looked back for a moment and saw a large male leopard walking casually on the other bank of the ravine. He walked out of a thicket and sat in the open on a rock in a grassy meadow. The monsoon rains had turned the meadow bright green, and the leopard’s lemon-yellow coat, with its dark black rosettes, looked like a painting on someone’s living room wall. He looked at me nonchalantly. He was a good 50 metres away, and there was a small stream between us, but still, I was surprised by his boldness. I watched him for a good 15 minutes and took some pictures before he got up and walked along the stream.

Then, one night, when Balu was guarding his wheat crop, he saw an eye shine. He suspected it to be nilgai and tried to chase it away. He was fairly close when he realised that it was a leopard. He made a swift retreat but did not turn his back on the leopard.

The next time I saw the leopard, it was closer home. My wife reminded me that it was near the same pool where our three-year-old daughter had been playing the previous evening.

“But this leopard has never harmed a human,” Balu joined the conversation.

I was a little surprised when my father said that the leopard had killed one of Balu’s cows.

When I reached the gotha, I expected him to be a little cross, but he was his usual self. I did not want to bring up the cow or the leopard, but he jumped as soon as he saw me and started telling me all the details of how the leopard got into the gotha and killed the cow. He recreated the whole scene. I asked him if he would apply to the Forest Department for compensation. He said he would try, but often it is not worth the effort.

Coyly, I asked him how he felt about the leopard. He said it was the best thing that had happened this year. When he saw the surprised look on my face, he explained that for the past few years, he had been hiring a farm hand to keep away the langurs, nilgai and boars from his crops. But ever since this new leopard had become a common presence, the crop-raiders have kept their distance from the Lekurwali farm. “I have been saving ~6,000 a month,” he said, proudly.

— The writer is director of the India Programme of Snow Leopard Trust