A sudden flash and she glares in the direction of the camera. She struts past and returns and another flash goes off. And this goes on four days. L5, a female leopard at Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) in Borivali, is the leopard most frequently captured by cameras in Mumbai. She is among the 35 leopards in the 140 sq km area, including the national park and Aarey colony, a survey by the Wildlife Institute of India (WWI) and SGNP has revealed. Of these, 31 have been identified using their unique rosette patterns. These include 16 females and 10 males. The sex of five is not known. The survey found that the leopard density at SGNP is 21 in a 100 sq km, which, the report said, was one of the highest density of leopards found anywhere. The study, ‘Ecology of leopard in SGNP, with special reference to its abundance, prey selection and food habits’, using camera trapping, was done by WWI’s Nikit Surve between December 2014 and April 2015.............Read more

Source web page: Indian Express