Residents of rural towns in India have killed two rare leopards after the cats left their mountain habitats presumably to search for food.
The incidents highlight the growing conflict between the animals and humans sparked by India's economic boom and rapid population growth, The Times of London reports.
In the latest incidents residents of Nashik clubbed a leopard to death with sticks and iron bars after the cat strayed into a residential area and injured four people.
Local television showed footage of the terrified animal running across a city park as dozens of people chased it.
A second leopard was followed and beaten to death in a mountainous region of Jammu and Kashmir after it injured two people in town.
It is estimated there are more than 14,000 leopards in India.
Copyright 2007 by United Press International
Related stories:
Update on census of world's most endangered cat -- Female Amur leopard found dead
Following the April 18 announcement that only 25 to 34 of the Amur or Far Eastern leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis) remain in the wild, World Wildlife Fund says the number must now be revised because a female Amur leopard was killed.
Scientist says Taung Child killed by bird
A U.S. paleontologist working in South Africa says he has unraveled what the cause of death was for the first ape-man fossil discovered in Africa.
New evidence implicates humans in prehistoric animal extinctions
Research led by UK and Australian scientists sheds new light on the role that our ancestors played in the extinction of Australia's prehistoric animals. The study, published this week in the journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, provides the first evidence that Tasmania's giant kangaroos and marsupial 'rhinos' and 'leopards' were still roaming the island when humans first arrived. The findings suggest that the mass extinction of Tasmania's large prehistoric animals was the result of human hunting, and not climate change as previously believed.
Evolution of skull and mandible shape in cats
In a new study published in the online-open access journal
PLoS ONE, Per Christiansen at the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark, reports the finding that the evolution of skull and mandible shape in sabercats and modern cats were governed by different selective forces, and the two groups evolved very different adaptations to killing.
Big predatory mammals such as felines need between 5 and 7 different types of prey to meet their dietary needs
Faced with earlier studies stating that the big predators such as tigers, lions, and lynxes fulfil their dietary needs by eating one or two types of prey, scientists from the University of Malaga assure us now that felines need from 5 to 7 different types of prey to fulfil their dietary needs, although they may be more specialised anatomically than the canines (wolves, dogs?) who can obtain 100% ingested biomass by eating three types of prey. This study brings new keys to the paleoecology of the big predators from the past, such as sabre-toothed tigers.
Researchers find human virus in chimpanzees
After studying chimpanzees in the wilds of Tanzania's Mahale Mountains National Park for the past year as part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, Virginia Tech researcher Dr. Taranjit Kaur and her team have produced powerful scientific evidence that chimpanzees are becoming sick from viral infectious diseases they have likely contracted from humans.
Island monkeys do not recognize big cat calls
Monkeys living on an island without big cat predators do not show any particular alarm when recorded tiger growls are played to them, according to research by a UC Davis graduate student. The pig-tailed langurs do, however, flee in a hurry from the sound of human voices.
How our ancestors were like gorillas
Research published in this week’s
Science journal shows that some of our closest extinct relatives had more in common with gorillas than previously thought. Dr Charles Lockwood, UCL Department of Anthropology and lead author of the study, said: “When we examined fossils from 1.5 to 2 million years ago we found that in one of our close relatives the males continued to grow well into adulthood, just as they do in gorillas. This resulted in a much bigger size difference between males and females than we see today.