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Dogs are the favorite food of leopards in rural India

Dogs dominate the menu, making up 39 percent of the leopard's diet, while domestic cats came in second at 15 percent.

By Brooks Hays
A leopard roams the grounds of the Nagarhole National Park, in Kabini, Karnataka, India. (CC/Srikaanth Sekar)
A leopard roams the grounds of the Nagarhole National Park, in Kabini, Karnataka, India. (CC/Srikaanth Sekar)

AHMEDNAGAR, India, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- In rural India, much of the landscape is dominated by agriculture. Cattle and goats gather along the roads and graze the countryside. With so much livestock free for the taking, you might expect the leopards that roam the Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra to pick off a calf or a kid for their midnight meal.

But a new study by researchers with the Wildlife Conservation Society show that while India's leopards aren't above the occasional filet or shoulder of pork, goat or mutton, they prefer dog tartar. Cattle are apparently too large a target to take down. Scientists gained a new understanding of the leopard's diet by wandering around rural India picking up pieces of cat poop.

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The dozens of samples of leopard scat showed domestic animals make up some 87 percent of big cat's diet. Dogs dominate the menu, making up 39 percent of the leopard's diet, while domestic cats came in second at 15 percent. It's likely leopards prefer dogs and cats because they're abundant and easy to catch, but the lethal cats apparently still enjoy the thrill of the occasional hunt, as 17 percent of their diet includes wild animals like monkeys, mongoose and birds.

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"During the past two-to-three decades, legal regulation of leopard hunting, increased conservation awareness, and the rising numbers of feral dogs as prey have all led to an increase in leopard numbers outside of nature reserves in agricultural landscapes," explained Ullas Karanth, the director of science for the Wildlife Conservation Society's Asian office.

"While this is good news for conservation and a tribute to the social tolerance of Indian people, it also poses major challenges of managing conflict that occasionally breaks out," added Karanth, co-author of the new study. "Only sound science can help us face this challenge."

The study was published this week in the journal Oryx.

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