Tiger populations have faced significant declines in recent years due to poaching, dwindling prey, and habitat loss. However, among the humid evergreen forests, dry open jungle, and grassy swamps of southern Nepal, tiger populations are growing. Climate change threatens this progress. Hotter temperatures, increased flooding, and prolonged dry spells are expected to endanger existing tiger and prey habitats. In April 2020, Nepal’s first high-altitude tiger was documented at 8,200 feet above sea level. This finding is likely not an isolated incident, as species shift their ranges to higher altitudes and latitudes in response to a warming climate.
According to a recent study, climate change is expected to increase the leopards’ habitat in Nepal’s high mountain regions, which could lead to more conflicts with people and rivalry with snow leopards. But its preferred prey species such as barking deer and wild boars may not be available in its new habitat,” says study lead author Kedar Baral, from the Pokhara Division Forest Office in Nepal. “This might lead to conflict with the local communities as leopards attack their domestic livestock for food,” he added.
Human-wildlife conflicts have become one of the major threats to tiger conservation. The trend of human casualties from tiger confl ict in Nepal has increased from an average of 1.2 (±1.2) persons per year prior to 1998 to 7.2 (±6.9) persons per year from 1998 to 2006 (Gurung et al. 2008).
The Bengal tiger was observed at 3,165 metres in Ilam and 2,500 metres in Dadeldhura districts in 2020 as wildlife experts speculate one of many reasons may possibly be the impacts of climatic change. As a result of habitat fragmentation and the effects of climate change, the human-wildlife conflict has been on the rise in recent years. Wild mammals such as Asian elephants, common leopards, Bengal tigers, one-horned rhinoceros, bears, and wild boars are the common species involved in human fatalities and injuries
Credit: ‘Bengal tiger’ by Linda De Volder via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
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Leopards (Panthera pardus) are a threatened species categorized as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. In Nepal, they often come into conflict with humans in rural communities, especially in the middle hills region. In the district of Tanahun here, 11 children were killed in encounters with leopard in the space of four years leading to fears that retaliatory killings may be taking a toll on their population.
The snow leopard faces numerous overlapping threats, including being killed by herders retaliating against livestock losses, illegal wildlife trade, loss of prey and habitat, and climate change. Ripple et al. (2014) revealed that one of the major limiting factors resulting in a decrease in the number of Panthera species is altitude. However, altitude does not directly impact habitat suitability, it indirectly influences Panthera distribution through temperature (Aryal et al., 2014). A further study by Aryal et al. (2016) acknowledged that annual mean temperature is the major climatic factor responsible for controlling the distribution of snow leopards in energy-deficient, high-altitude environments.Potential Range Shift of Snow Leopard in Future Climate Change Scenarios by Li et al. (2022) found that snow leopards would move northwest by about 200 km in 2070 in two global climate models for different representative concentration pathways. Also, climate can markedly affect predators through its impact on the relative timing of food requirements and food availability (Durant et al., 2007) as the prey of the snow leopard like blue sheep will be reduced under future climate change (Aryal et al., 2016) which leads to food availability.
Leopards have disappeared from many areas where they were once common, according to the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority. It attributes this decline to the expansion of human settlements leading to fragmentation of their habitats, along with the illegal wildlife trade, overhunting for ceremonial use of their skins, declines in prey populations, and poorly managed trophy hunting. Between 1975 to 2000, 57% of potential leopard habitat globally was converted to agricultural land.
“In the context of Nepal, that the conflict is centralized in the middle hills also suggests that conditions in the high mountains and hills of Nepal are not suitable for leopards at the moment,” said Baral, whose team visited division forest offices and national parks across the country to collect data on the presence of leopards between 2018 and 2020. They then verified the location of leopard sightings by consulting with local people and recorded 343 locations for the study.
We can expect to see an increase of around 10% in the area of land in the higher mountains where leopards may survive in the future,” Baral said.
Krishna Prasad Acharya’s team investigated the pattern of wildlife attack records in Nepal from 2010 to 2014 and found that the bulk of frequent leopard attacks on humans were outside protected areas, particularly surrounding human settlements, around April, the driest month of the year.
The study notes that this availability of habitat in higher altitudes could push the leopards into increased competition with snow leopards (Panthera uncia), a species whose own habitat is shifting southward due to climate change.
“As the common leopard can easily adapt to new habitats, they might push the snow leopards to the fringes just as the tigers push leopards to the fringes in Nepal’s lowlands,” says Bikram Shrestha, a snow leopard researcher who wasn’t involved in the leopard study.
the population of leopards throughout Asia and Africa is declining and becoming increasingly isolated. Image by Srikaanth Sekar via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).
The other side of the story is that leopards have a better chance of survival in Nepal than in most other range countries as climate change expands their habitat range here. Conservation efforts must address not only habitat protection but also human-wildlife conflict and the impact of development projects on crucial corridors. The story of tigers in these high-altitude mountains is a stark reminder of the interconnectedness of our planet.
“That gives us an opportunity to save this globally threatened species, if we take the right approach,” Baral said. “First of all, we need to ensure that people in these prospective habitats are aware of the importance of conservation, and then make sure that leopards have enough wild prey to eat so that they don’t attack domestic livestock. We also need to encourage community forests to include wildlife management in their operational plans.” It’s a race against time to mitigate climate change, protect biodiversity, and ensure the long-term survival of these magnificent creatures.
