🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

By fitting GPS collars to leopards living among farms and villages in western Maharashtra, this study quantified how big cats navigate a landscape saturated with people. Collared leopards were strongl…

Odden M, Athreya V, Rattan S, Linnell JDC · PLoS ONE · 2014

This influential study documented free-ranging leopards living at high density in the densely populated, intensively cultivated countryside of Maharashtra, India, far from any protected forest. Using…

Athreya V, Odden M, Linnell JDC, Krishnaswamy J, Karanth U · PLoS ONE · 2013

This study quantified an unexpected ecosystem service delivered by leopards inhabiting Sanjay Gandhi National Park inside greater Mumbai. By modelling leopard diet, in which feral and stray dogs form…

Braczkowski AR, OBryan CJ, Stringer MJ, Watson JEM, Possingham HP, Beyer HL · Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment · 2018

High-resolution GPS tracking combined with accelerometers and other biologgers has transformed the study of how felids behave near people, enabling fine-scale analysis of movement, activity, energetic…

Cities concentrate food in forms that wildlife can exploit, from garbage and compost to pet food, livestock, abundant commensal rodents and feral animals, and these anthropogenic subsidies underpin ma…

Across the felid family, the capacity to flexibly adjust activity timing, space use, diet and risk responses largely determines which species can live near people. This overview synthesises evidence t…

Leopard cats occur not only in deep farmland but at the fringes of towns and suburbs across parts of Asia, suggesting considerable tolerance of human activity. This overview synthesises camera-trap an…

Camera traps, often paired with individual identification by coat patterns and spatial capture-recapture models, are a cornerstone method for studying secretive felids in human-dominated landscapes. T…

Cities support large populations of commensal rodents fed by human waste, and these rodents form a critical prey subsidy for small and medium urban felids from bobcats to leopard cats and jungle cats.…

From leopards in Mumbai to pumas in Los Angeles, caracals in Cape Town and fishing cats in Colombo, a remarkable diversity of felids inhabits the worlds cities, offering a comparative window on urban…

Long-term coexistence between people and leopards in human-dominated India rests partly on social, cultural and religious dimensions that shape tolerance. This overview surveys social-science research…

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 sm…

Habitat edges created by urban development alter microclimate, vegetation, prey, disturbance and predator interactions, shaping how felids use the boundary between natural and built land. This overvie…

Tea, coffee and rubber plantations across South and Southeast Asia form extensive human-modified habitats used by leopards, leopard cats, jungle cats and fishing cats with varying tolerance. This over…

Fragmentation of lowland habitat by roads, settlement and intensive agriculture can erode genetic connectivity in leopard cat populations even where the species remains present. This overview synthesi…

Vehicle collisions are a leading direct cause of death for felids in human-dominated landscapes worldwide, from pumas on Los Angeles freeways to leopard cats on Taiwan rural roads and fishing cats in…

Parks, greenbelts, riparian corridors, vacant lots and vegetated drainage form a network of green infrastructure that urban felids exploit for shelter, hunting and movement. This overview synthesises…

Concentrated, predictable food in cities allows carnivores to meet their needs over smaller areas, contributing to the strikingly compressed home ranges documented in urban felids from leopards to pum…

Successful coexistence with urban felids depends as much on human attitudes, institutions and behaviour as on animal ecology. This overview synthesises social-science research on tolerance, risk perce…

Decisions about where and how cities expand profoundly shape whether large and small carnivores can persist alongside people. This overview synthesises research and practice on integrating carnivore n…

Leopard cats occasionally prey on free-ranging chickens, generating conflict with rural households whose tolerance is pivotal to the species survival in unprotected farmland. This overview synthesises…

Leopard cats are efficient predators of rodents and other small prey, and in agricultural mosaics they may provide pest-suppression services that benefit farmers. This overview synthesises scat and pr…

Taiwan leopard cat population persists almost entirely outside protected areas, in a patchwork of low-elevation farmland, betel-nut and fruit orchards, secondary forest and rural settlements in Miaoli…

Sanjay Gandhi National Park is a roughly hundred-square-kilometre forest island embedded within metropolitan Mumbai, hosting one of the highest known leopard densities recorded near a megacity. This o…

Across India, leopards occupy a continuum from forest reserves to intensively farmed countryside, with sugarcane, tea and other tall-crop landscapes functioning as year-round habitat. This overview sy…

How urban felids are portrayed in media and perceived by the public strongly influences tolerance, policy and conservation outcomes. This overview synthesises social-science research on news framing o…

Leopards sharing space with dense human populations frequently become more strictly nocturnal, compressing their activity into the hours when people are least active. This overview surveys telemetry a…

Many felids become more strictly nocturnal as human activity increases, a pattern documented from Indian leopards to Californian bobcats and pumas. This overview synthesises camera-trap and telemetry…

Protecting livestock and poultry from felid predation through non-lethal means is central to reducing conflict and retaliatory killing at the urban and agricultural edge. This overview synthesises res…

Leopard attacks on humans, though rare relative to encounter frequency, shape public perception and policy across urban-adjacent India. This overview surveys research on the spatial and temporal clust…