Leopard sterilisation in India: The ecological and ethical costs of anthropocentric wildlife management
India's rising human-leopard conflict has prompted the government to adopt immune contraceptives to manage leopard populations. The decision has sparked debate among wildlife experts and conservation organisations, government officials, and local communities. Here, I discuss the ecological and ethical implications of this intervention and highlight alternative, coexistence-based approaches that recognise both humans and wildlife as stakeholders within shared socio-ecological systems.
Authors
- Pranay Arora (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2223-4062)
Institutions
- University of Oxford (GB)
Publication Details
- Journal
- AMBIO
- Published
- 2026-08-14
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-026-02473-0
- Primary Topic
- Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00