LAHORE: The common leopard’s conflict with local communities in Pakistan is a serious issue and the primary reason for this is loss of its habitat, which has caused the loss of natural prey of the leopard that is dependent on domestic animals for its food, leading to its retaliatory killing.

This was stated by Dr Uzma Khan, director Biodiversity, World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan while talking to the media at the organisation’s head office here on Tuesday.

Presenting aspects of her doctoral research, Dr Uzma said the data provided by the communities showed that more livestock was lost to disease as compared to the leopard.

“It is believed that the leopard population has increased because there are more sightings; however, the reality is that the communities have increasingly penetrated the habitat and the leopard range has reduced,” she said.

Ms Uzma added there was no protected area for the leopard in Punjab and its remaining habitat in Murree was under pressure of development while the Ayubia National Park was in even smaller than the home range of a single leopard.

Globally, the common leopard was listed as near threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species but the Country Assessment of IUCN showed that the species was critically endangered in Pakistan which was alarming as it could face extinction if threats associated with it were not given due attention, she said.

Dr Ejaz Ahmed, senior director, WWF-Nature Pakistan, gave concluding remarks.

Published in Dawn, July 1st, 2015

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