Spatio‐temporal patterns, associated factors and mitigation of tiger and leopard attacks on people in western Himalayas

Coexistence with large carnivores becomes extremely difficult in areas where there are large number of attacks on humans. An understanding of the factors that explain the spatio‐temporal context of such attacks would guide policy and management to mitigate conflict, conserve carnivores and assist coexistence.

We use spatial locations of attacks by tigers ( n  = 132) and leopards ( n  = 1914) between 2000 and 2019 in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, India, to understand their seasonality, vulnerability of different demographics to attacks and model their occurrence with eco‐geographical covariates using maximum entropy approach in MaxEnt.

About 98 leopard attacks occurred per year out of which 22.3% were fatal while there were about seven tiger attacks per year with 34.8% being fatal. Leopard attacks peaked during the monsoon during high crop cover, while tiger attacks were high during summers when people entered into tiger habitats for forest produce or forestry operations. Adult men were most vulnerable to attacks by both carnivores while fatality was high among children and women. Tiger attacks occurred primarily within forests while leopard attacks were equally likely near settlements and forests.

Both tiger and leopard attacks recorded an increasing trend and tiger attack frequency was correlated with increasing tiger numbers. MaxEnt models characterized leopard attacks to occur in areas of low‐ to mid‐elevation range while people were engaged in their daily routine, within forests, farmlands and near habitation and were not limited to the proximity of protected areas. In contrast, tiger attacks were limited to proximity of protected areas, low human population and at lower elevation. Tiger attacks primarily occurred when people ventured into tiger habitats for livelihood needs.

Within the identified hotspots of conflict, addressing and changing lifestyles through poverty elevation, reducing forest dependent livelihoods, smart practices of vigilance, along with removal of individual problem animals expediently and judicious use of carnivore proof fencing were ways of reducing attacks. Only with such science informed policy and spatially explicit management will large carnivores continue to be tolerated and allowed to recover in the Anthropocene.