Feisty females and interactions: Spotlight on behaviour

Unique and different seem to be the behaviour of the sleek beauties of the Yala National Park that wildlife enthusiast Dushyantha Silva and his friends have uncovered.

“We have seen the unique phenomenon of a mother and son mating,” says Dushyantha, going onto explain that there are codenames and a system (a continuous running number) of naming leopards, while of course they have their own nicknames for these Big Cats.

He explains that it runs thus………YM10 (which means Yala Male 10) or YF10 (Yala Female 10), with a similar diary record and system now taking place at close-by Kumana National Park.

However, whoever spots a leopard for the first time gets the honour of giving it a nickname and handsome ‘Lucas’ is a well-photographed favourite, while ‘Strawberry’ is another. Dushyantha does not have a favourite but likes newer leopards and one rarely seen is ‘Lanka’.

All this has come about from a leopard identification project initiated by Milinda Wattegedara in 2013 with the other team members being Dushyantha, Raveendra Siriwardena, Mevan Piyasena, Heshan Peiris, Sadeepa Gunawardena, Pramod Sendanayake, Pasan Seneviratne, Chathura Dushmantha, Sahan Gooneratne, Dr. Sudantha Chandrasena, Mindaka Mahela, Pumudi Premaratne and Sandaru Wickremaratne.

Other extraordinary behaviour, the group has recorded at Yala, includes “all sorts of interactions” among the leopards even though they are usually believed to be solitary creatures.

The Yala leopards share the same home range with such sharing between sub-adult males with older males; aged females with younger females; and same-age females. The home-range of both males and females also expands, with some born in one area going to another, it has been found.

The female beauties of Yala are quite feisty too – according to literature the male is usually the

Romeo going out with several partners but here at Yala, the females rendezvous with multiple partners at the same time sharing the home range, says Dushyantha.

Another phenomenon is communal feeding – they have seen seven leopards from three families feeding on one deer carcass. There had also been an instance of two leopards feeding together, he says, pointing out that “we have based our earlier ideas on experiences reported from Africa. However, at least at Yala it seems to be different”.

Big Cat behaviour in Africa could be different as the apex predator (a species at the top of the food chain with no natural predators within its ecosystem) is the lion. Therefore, the lion is above the leopard there, but here the apex predator is the leopard, while there is also no food or water shortage for leopards at Yala. This would cut out the competition.

The leopard identification initiative led to the creation of a bank of photographs and videos from which blossomed the ‘ Yala Leopard Diary’. By 2018, they shared their work with the DWC and with the work speaking for itself, the Assistant Director of Uva, Prasantha Wimaladasa and Yala Park Warden Pradeep Siyasinghe and Deputy Warden Ranjith Sisira Kumara who were also keen watchers of leopards exchanged data with them.

Hot on the pug-prints of this interaction followed a request for the publication of an official Leopard Guide Book for the DWC, which they did, all the while sharing the identification of leopards with the DWC’s Head Office including Director- General Chandana Sooriyabandara and park staff in 2019.

From all this work then arose the idea of establishing an Information Centre on Leopards at Yala, as there was no such centre anywhere in the world.

Roping in Navesta Pharmaceuticals and E-wis as sponsors who linked up with the DWC, the Dr. Ravi Samarasinha Memorial Building at Palatupana had been renovated and an LED screen provided giving out information on all the leopards which had been identified along with their family trees. Large panels are also on display on special leopard behaviour that the group has seen.

“Using the Memorial Building is a fitting tribute to Dr. Samarasinha who dedicated his life for leopard study,” says Dushyantha.

From identifying leopards, the group had moved onto studying their behaviour in 2019 with the DWC’s Research and Training Department.

It was in 2021 that software engineers in their group came up with a software for anyone who clicks photos of leopards and uploads them to get an automatic ‘match’ or ‘identification’.

It is about 95% accurate, says Dushyantha, going onto explain that it is free of charge.

While some findings of the group have been published in ‘ WILDLANKA’, the journal of the DWC, more are in the pipeline.