Research overview: frameworks for leopard coexistence in urban and peri-urban India

This overview synthesises emerging frameworks for managing leopards in urban and peri-urban India, integrating ecology, public health, communications, and governance. It reviews recommendations distilled from Mumbai, Pune, and other cities: waste and dog management to reduce prey subsidies, rapid-response and rumour-control protocols, restraint on reflexive capture and translocation, resident education, and infrastructure such as well-covering and lighting. The literature emphasises coexistence as the default policy goal, with removal reserved for confirmed dangerous individuals. It draws on the SGNP experience to argue that institutional preparedness and behaviour change prevent escalation. The survey presents a maturing, evidence-based playbook for sharing cities with large cats.