Word: boris
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...Their solitude, however, has been disturbed by human encroachment as the land around Bori Budruk?a lush succession of green canyons known as the Western Ghats that stretches from Bombay to Kerala?has followed the sad but familiar tale of modern development. In the last decade man drowned many of the forests behind vast new dams, cut down what timber remained and hunted to extinction the wild deer, boar and sheep that are the leopards' preferred prey. In the time it took to fill a reservoir, the leopards of the Ghats found themselves in the open, homeless and hungry...
...Some did. Of the 13 leopards found dead around Bori Budruk since January 2000, postmortems showed all died of starvation. But this summer things took a savage and unforeseen turn. The animals adapted. In the tamed landscape in which they found themselves?neat rows of tomatoes and cornflowers and chrysanthemums for export to Europe?leopards came across man-made forests of towering sugarcane. Far from being just a make-do home, says forestry chief Ashokkumar N. Khadse, the cane fields proved to be an ideal leopard habitat. The animals flourished in the impenetrable thickets, producing two litters a year...
...There may be no more compelling argument against wildlife conservation than a devoured child. You'd expect the villagers to be howling. And a few of the men of Bori Budruk, including Vilas, do want the leopards dead. They angrily accuse forest officer Dashrat Sabaj Wayal, who visits the villages armed only with the principles of conservation, of doing nothing. This isn't true. Wayal has helped trap and release 58 leopards since January 2000, and in February played tug-of-war with an animal that had a man locked in its jaws for 15 minutes until it gave...
...mostly, the lush land that gave the villagers of Bori Budruk their wealth seems to have sown in them a rare equanimity. They see the cats not as parasites that need eradicating, but as part of the cherished natural order. "A human life is more important than that of a leopard," says Madhu Jadhav, whose 10-year-old niece Shradha survived being dragged from his porch by a leopard in August. "But the leopard does need to be saved." Most villagers agree with Wayal, the forest officer, that relocating the animals to a sanctuary, however long it takes...
...Throughout most of the world, man has nature by the throat. Occasionally in Bori Budruk, it's the other way around. By letting the leopards live, the villagers hold on to their past, preserving within themselves the trace memory of that which was once wild, fierce and free...