Leopards Wolf Down Fido In India Ag Area

A study of leopard droppings in agricultural western India reveals that the cats primarily eat domestic animals, mostly dogs, but only a small amount of livestock. Steve Mirsky reports. Sep 16, 2014 | |

The business world is sometimes described figuratively as dog eat dog. In the state of in western India the situation is literally cat eat dog. Where the cats are and the dogs are, well, dogs. That’s the finding of a study published in the journal Oryx. [Vidya Athreya et al, ]

The paper points out that big cat ecology and predator prey interactions in tropical regions are typically studied in natural systems. The majority of the prey in those cases are ungulates: think zebras or deer. But in human-dominated areas, especially agricultural ones, you can have large populations of domesticated animals—a big attraction for any hungry wildlife.

Researchers examined 85 leopard scats, because that’s how you do this kind of research. And 87 percent of the prey biomass they recovered was from domestic animals, with nearly half of that coming

Livestock make up only a small part of the leopard diet. For example, goats outnumber dogs seven to one, but are just 11 percent of meals for the cats, probably because they’re penned in at night. Those numbers are good news because they may calm farmers’ fears about losses of agriculturally valuable species. Of course, it’s not good news for the dogs.

—Steve Mirsky

Scottish readers: Undecided about the referendum? Please read and