Parveen Kaswan, IFS has a large Twitter following and he often posts interesting and/or informative and/or thought-provoking content. He posted a video featuring a leopard interacting with human beings which was very unusual to say the least. The leopard seemed friendly which was strange enough, the behaviour of people around was also very strange.
It appears to be a mountainous highway with lots of cars parked along the road. People are out on the road along with a leopard who seems to be friendly or domesticated. The seemingly wild animal comes close, is nonthreatening and the people are wary but interested mostly in taking videos.
This is another video where the leopard seems to be behaving more like a domesticated house cat than a wild predator. And of course there are people around filming it all.
Some had the view that the leopard appeared to be drugged or intoxicated in some way; dazed enough to behave in a way opposite to his natural predatory nature. What would cause an animal to behave in this uncharacteristic fashion? This troubled a lot of people who thought that there should be an investigation into the matter.
It is against the law to domesticate animals like this, pointed out this forestry official. This could end up endangering the people in that home as well as the neighbourhood.
If the leopard is behaving strangely, so are the humans. They seem unmindful of the risks involved and there is some amount of bravado in ‘petting’ a wild animal and capturing it on video to show others.
Some of the tweeple thought that this was a cub rather than a full grown animal, which was the reason for its playful behaviour. Some thought that this was probably a result of humans encroaching on animal habitats; regular interaction with humans causing these otherwise wary creatures to lose their instinct to avoid humans. The creature had become used to having humans around. This behaviour is also potentially dangerous for the wild animal, not just the humans.
The animal is behaving strangely and so are the humans. It is not clear what the circumstances are for the animal behaving in this way; very much at variance with the way in which it should behave.
There were many other theories; some suggesting that the leopard was behaving in this way because it had been poisoned by poachers. Some thought that the leopard was actually behaving in a threatening fashion; it was just not possible to make out because of the slowed down video.
While there were many such theories, the bottom line is that this is a very powerful, predatory animal. As such the animal could quickly change its behaviour if it felt threatened in any way. When in a situation like this, it would be best for humans to keep away. And taking pictures and videos isn’t exactly appropriate behaviour; because this could spook the creature. If the leopard is behaving strangely, the human behaviour seen in this video is no less inappropriate.
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