One hundred and forty-nine leopards died in Madhya Pradesh between January 2025 and the following fourteen months — a figure that conservationists are calling deeply troubling for a state that holds some of India's most significant big cat populations. The data, obtained through a Right to Information request filed by activist Ajay Dube, lays bare the scale of attrition facing a species already under sustained pressure across the subcontinent. Road accidents alone accounted for 31 percent of deaths, with 19 fatalities recorded on highways specifically.
Roads as the Primary Threat
The Forest Department's own accounting makes the cause of death hierarchy stark: accidents — predominantly road collisions — were the single largest killer. Of the 31 percent attributed to accidents, highway deaths formed a significant subset, pointing to a well-documented but insufficiently addressed problem in wildlife management across India's rapidly expanding road network.
Leopards, unlike tigers, are highly adaptable animals that often live at the margins of human settlements, in scrublands, forested buffer zones, and agricultural peripheries. This adaptability, which has historically helped the species survive, becomes a liability when their territories are bisected by high-speed roads. Nocturnal movement patterns mean that many crossings happen in low-visibility conditions, dramatically increasing collision risk. Highways that pass through or adjacent to forest corridors without adequate underpasses, speed controls, or warning signage are, in effect, barriers that exact a consistent biological toll.
The Disputed Comfort of a Four Percent Mortality Rate
Officials from the Forest Department stated that the recorded mortality rate — approximately four percent — falls within what they consider acceptable limits. That framing has drawn criticism. Acceptable relative to what baseline, and calculated against which population estimate, matters enormously. Leopard population counts in India are notoriously difficult to verify with precision; unlike tigers, leopards have not been subject to the same intensity of systematic census methodology. If the population estimate used to calculate that percentage is itself uncertain, the reassurance the figure is meant to provide weakens considerably.
Ajay Dube, who filed the RTI request, described the figures as alarming — and the concern is reasonable beyond the numbers themselves. Mortality data obtained through information requests reflects reported deaths: animals found, identified, and logged. Carcasses in dense forest, deaths from poisoning in human-conflict situations, or animals killed in retaliatory incidents that go unreported would not appear in these figures. The actual toll could be higher.
A Broader Pattern of Wildlife Attrition
Madhya Pradesh is often cited as one of India's most wildlife-rich states, home to multiple tiger reserves and significant leopard habitat. The pressure on that habitat, however, has intensified steadily. Infrastructure expansion — roads, railways, mining operations — continues to fragment forest corridors that wildlife depend on for movement, territory establishment, and breeding. Fragmented populations face compounded risks: reduced genetic diversity over generations, increased inbreeding, and greater exposure to human contact at forest edges.
The leopard's situation in India also reflects a human-wildlife conflict dimension that road deaths alone do not capture. As leopards move through agricultural zones and village peripheries, encounters with people increase, sometimes resulting in retaliatory killings when livestock or, more rarely, humans are harmed. Conservation frameworks that address only protected areas while neglecting the broader landscape — the buffer zones, revenue forests, and agricultural corridors where leopards actually spend much of their time — will continue to produce outcomes like these.
What Genuine Mitigation Requires
The Forest Department indicated that efforts are underway to reduce fatalities. What that means in practice determines whether those efforts are likely to succeed. Road mortality in wildlife is a solved problem in principle, if not always in execution. Wildlife underpasses, roadside fencing that channels animals toward crossing points, speed reduction enforcement at identified hotspots, and early-warning systems have all demonstrated effectiveness in contexts where they have been properly implemented and maintained.
The 149 deaths recorded in fourteen months represent not just a conservation concern but a governance one. Data obtained through RTI requests should not be the primary mechanism by which the public learns the scale of wildlife mortality in a state that positions itself as a conservation leader. Transparent, regular, and publicly accessible mortality reporting — disaggregated by cause, location, and age where possible — would allow researchers, civil society, and policymakers to identify patterns and allocate responses before the numbers compound further.
