The nature of his face, understanding the leopard Chombu

Leopards still exist in 63 countries but it's in India and Nepal where attacks on people are most prevalent. How much stress are leopards under? How much stress are people under?

An end of year Substack post giving reality but also hope…

A few days ago a man said to me that Chombu is a man-eater. I understand why he said it, I understand the anger, the fear, the emotion. I replied that I thought the most recent children killed were desperately unlucky, the leopard had not hunted them and that if he was a man-eater then there would be more frequent attacks.

I felt guilty after saying that.

The man was stressed. I’ve written this before but when leopards kill children the community suffers in a way that I don’t really have the words for. To the man my reply may have sounded as if I was defending Chombu. I wasn’t, I don’t think in terms of a leopard being guilty or not guilty. I just think of them as leopards trying to survive. My guilt over my reply was that at the time I didn’t fully consider how the man was feeling about the situation. Everyone in the community knows children who have been killed.

I feel slightly frazzled sometimes when I’m in Chombu’s domain. In some parts of his territory I get an eerie feeling. I feel I’m being watched. I probably am. I most certainly am. It’s not fear as such, it’s more a high state of awareness which at the end of a tough year is draining. Wild animals and people have suffered. There’s images in my head of children ripped to pieces by leopards. There’s images of tiger skins, I imagine what the big cats went through to die. There’s images and the feeling of the elephant whose breath touched me as the huge tusker got so close when chasing me I thought my time was up.

Aside from my own encounters there’s reports, alerts, every day. Media and social media are too often inaccurate but where there’s smoke there’s fire, the notifications of leopard body parts seized, leopards killed in retaliation after conflict, children killed by leopards, tiger and elephant incidents too, every day something. My private sources give the best information because they know to verify before contacting me. They are also invested because they care. Often, usually, I sense their stress because they do care.

I wanted to see Chombu’s face. In the video you can see more of the nature of him than I have shown before. He’s a big leopard but you can see enough youth in his face, that cat curiosity, to realize that although he is prime of life, he is still an animal figuring things out. In a human dominated world that is not easy for a leopard. Chombu looks to be at the stage that although he is clever, his name means clever, he has to keep learning, keep adapting. Not easy but necessary to survive. Mistakes happen.

I am sure Chombu does not target children. The last two children killed I strongly feel were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Chombu does kill the goats of farmers, this means he ventures close to human settlements where children are. In parts of his territory he has no choice but to do that. In other parts of his territory there is a reasonable population of monkeys and not so adequate numbers of deer and wild boar. Different community forests have different ecosystem robustness, varying from no natural prey to a supply that a large predator can sustain life with. Different ecosystems mean different challenges, some of those challenges very stressful for human and leopard.

You can’t talk to a person about ecosystems when a loved one has been killed by a leopard, especially when the victim is a child. The conversations need to be around understanding, empathy and then as gently as possible, solutions that are feasible and not driven by emotion. Not easy when people are stressed.

A couple of days ago I posted this photo on social media (Facebook and Instagram):

Summit Gurung is putting in a piece of early warning system tech (LeopardEye). As I mentioned at those platforms, Chombu comes right into their courtyard to the goat shed not far from where Summit sleeps. I’ve found that installation of LeopardEye gives people not only practical support it has helped ease stress. Not completely but it’s something. Summit is doing a great job engaging with his community explaining the tech which is he now very savvy with, that in itself eases my workload in that location. He is easy to train, picks things up quickly and innovates, he is a practical young man of the mountain jungle, a place far away from national parks and wildlife tourism, a place where people and wild animals attempt to coexist and can manage it for some time but it is often stressful and sometimes tragic.

Summit’s sister walks to school from their in the middle of nowhere house. It is about twenty minutes to a tiny village, just a handful of houses, where she meets friends and then there is a long climb up a steep hill through part of Chombu’s territory. There is a degree of safety in numbers. Leopards are risk averse in general and the bigger the group of people the less likely there will be an incident. That is not always the case. Just two days ago in Bardiya six people were injured in a leopard attack, my sources have pieced together the incident for me, I gather as much information as I can in my quest to understand leopard behavior.

The Bardiya leopard was stressed. No question. The big cat lashed out at all and sundry.

In Tanahun I met with Summit’s sister on the twenty minute trail from where she left her friends in the village on the last leg of her walk home. I muttered, almost to myself, that twenty minutes alone in that place is too long for a young girl. She heard me, quickly and more loudly than my own utterings, she replied - Yes! Too long! Too long!

Off she strode. She was stressed.

In the next couple of days I’m hopeful arrangements will be finalized for the supply of fresh, organic vegetables from farmers in Summit’s valley to be sold at a market in Pokhara. This will give much needed funds which can help with safety in leopard territory including that Summit’s sister can hopefully make a much shorter walk to a jeep track and have a safe ride to school. Summit is now embracing my advocacy for this type of alternative livelihood which can also have the effect of less need for goats to provide income and have the positive ecological effect of less grazing pressure in the forest meaning Chombu and other leopards can have more natural prey flourishing.

Along with intervention of tools like LeopardEye these types of alternative livelihood initiatives are an important pillar which flow on which include improved morale in the community. You see, it’s the way it is but the victims of leopard attacks are almost always those who are economically struggling. The lack of safety goes hand in hand with poverty. Such is the world. Such is the stress caused by attacks and nervousness leading to retaliation. Many times I have written about this - when will it sink in with those who do not have to live with potentially dangerous animals, again, not a question, more my own wondering which is really frustration. We could save so many more lives on both sides if the support was greater.

We keep trying.

The third pillar, after early warning systems combined with strong community communication and alternative livelihoods is something that is evolving quickly after its roots from a few years ago which was in the form of the Coexistence Kids. The evolution has taken us to Youth for Human - Wildlife Coexistence (YHWC). I’m excited by this, you’ll be able to find out more in the WildTiger reboot on 1 January but it’s heartwarming that some of original Coexistence Kids are among those involved. YHWC is becoming far reaching though and one of the leaders who will become more known in the reboot is a first year Institute of Forestry student who really understands coexistence challenges because she has lived them. Chitra cares about people and wildlife, she has the balance needed to approach and lead, she is already influencing others not to take sides, a long time problem within the overall issue of human - wildlife conflict. Chitra understands the stress on both sides, it gives me hope that youth led messaging can create far better understanding and effort to mitigate conflict in ways that previous generations have failed to take seriously enough and now we are all paying for.

Yes, there is hope.

My own understanding of the stress on leopards is something I want to improve. A recent study in Madhya Pradesh showed cortisol levels of tigers in high volume tourist areas to be higher than that of tigers living with less interaction with humans. In my leopard rewilding work I’ve observed behavior during rehab of the big cats which ties in with the MP study. I’m in dialogue with different universities as to how we can take this further with a study which can shed light as to just how much stress leopards are under. By doing this we deal with the factors inducing those stresses meaning coexistence improvement as leopards are like us in that behavior under stress can lead to extremely negative outcomes with tragedy for both sides.

Yes, 2024 has been tough, I’m not disguising my fatigue but the promise of what we have unfolding for 2025 energizes me, again it gives me hope. I do need to strengthen my own ecosystem though, these initiatives cost money, I need people who are passionate, who care because yes, it can be, often is, stressful.

Chombu’s face shed light for me, more than just illumination caused by the tech, it allowed me to look at him in his moment of time, to glean more about him, to think deeply about his life and what he has to endure. The cost of human life, particularly children corresponds with the cost of leopard lives, the losses, how do we measure them? We can’t. What cost a child’s life? What cost a leopard’s life? If the stress on both human and wild animal is not reduced we will be forever counting that cost. Well, some will, it worries me that more don’t, a sad reflection of the continuing disconnection with nature. There are champions though, I thank you for your urgency and support, you know who you are and we need more of you, let’s get that word out in 2025.

India and Nepal suffer from too much human - leopard conflict, the proportions far outstretch the issue in the rest of the leopard’s range. I know we can reduce it, we have the tools, we just need more people with the will. I’m passionate about this and next year can hopefully be the one where more people become passionate. ‘When a Leopard is in your midst’ has taken on legs as a platform to do that in 2025, the video will show the reality of human - wildlife coexistence in its most raw form. The more care, the more action, the more support, the better coexistence can be. Again, how much is a child’s life worth? How much is a leopard’s life worth? We can’t put a value on these things, they are far too precious. Let’s reduce the stress and make life better for both in places where leopards live.

I thank those who care, my best to all, look into Chombu’s face, the nature of it - and let’s win this thing.

Jack