Research overview: diet of urban-adjacent leopards and reliance on domestic prey

Studies of leopard diet around Mumbai and across rural Maharashtra consistently find heavy reliance on domestic animals, particularly free-ranging dogs, alongside livestock, feral pigs, rodents and smaller wild prey. This overview synthesises scat-analysis and prey-availability research showing how anthropogenic food subsidies underpin high leopard densities in human-dominated landscapes lacking abundant wild ungulates. It discusses the implications for conflict, since predation on owned livestock drives intolerance while predation on stray dogs may reduce zoonotic disease risk. The synthesis connects diet flexibility to the broader theme of behavioural plasticity that allows felids to thrive in agricultural and peri-urban mosaics, and notes methodological cautions in interpreting scat-derived diet.