Abstract
India is an agricultural country; animal husbandry has always been associated with agriculture. People still thrive upon animal products such as milk, meat and manure intensely for their essentialities. India has a huge cattle population and most of them graze in areas close to forests and their fringes competing for their pastoral needs with other wild animals. This then leads to human-wildlife conflicts, which tends to culminate in a number of tragic outcomes, including wild animal poisoning. Poisoning is perceived as an easy way for people to rid themselves of wild animals. Numerous factors, including the type of agriculture practices conducted, public knowledge regarding toxicity of a specific product, cost, availability in the local market place and physical properties such as color, taste and odor determine the extent to which specific pesticides are used to deliberately poison wild animals. This paper deals with a case of phorate poisoning, which is an agrochemical, in a leopard in Sholerock Estate, Coonoor, Nilgiris district. An empty sachet of phorate was found close by. This was confirmed by the result from Regional Forensic Science Laboratory (RFSL). Leopard is however more versatile and can adapt to diverse conditions. It is often observed within the core and in the buffer zones surrounding protected areas and managed forests. It can tolerate human presence to a point. There have been several incidences where leopards have preyed on livestock, dogs, children and even adult humans leading to conflict. Therefore, the loss of an apex predator, that holds a significant position in the upper trophic level, will have deleterious effect on the balance, ultimately threatening human survival directly and indirectly. Key words: Conflict, phorate, poisoning.
Highlights
Life in the Nilgiris has always had its part and parcels with wildlife either as a boon or a bane
The necropsy findings, circumstantial evidence and laboratory confirmations strongly suggest that the reason for death was due to poisoning by organo phosphorus compound (OPC) indicatively phorate
The common uses of phorate for the tea plantations and to the adjoining agricultural cultivation were found out
Summary
Life in the Nilgiris has always had its part and parcels with wildlife either as a boon or a bane. Further human settlements had a dual impact on wild animal-habitat. Human settlements deprived the wild animals of the use of significantly large areas of habitat, and deprived them of significantly preferred habitat. Human-wildlife conflicts were found to be intensified as population growth forced the development activities which infringed on wildlife habitats. This led to fragmentation and declining of habitat quality, eventually causing competitions between humans and various wildlife species with regard to space and resources and stressed wild animals often turned to crops or livestock for food. Typical lesions of toxicity like pulmonary edema, hemorrhagic intestinal tracts, necrotic and degenerative changes in the liver and kidney were evident. The necropsy findings, circumstantial evidence and laboratory confirmations strongly suggest that the reason for death was due to poisoning by organo phosphorus compound (OPC) indicatively phorate
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