Do leopards and people actually share the same world?

I have a suggestion for everyone who loves Wilpattu and Neluma. For those of you who love to see leopards in the park, please look for other leopards when you go there next, and not Neluma. He can do with some peace and quiet for the remainder of his time, in what is essentially his wilderness/park.

- By Rukshan Jayewardene

Remember that we are merely visitors who come and go into the wilderness that we call Wilpattu. We are outsiders, external observers, we visit, we enjoy or endure and we go back to our rural or urban homes full of material things that we need or think we need to live. We as a nation, through our Parliament, have long ago declared Wilpattu a National Park and set it aside for all wildlife, that are native to the north western dry zone of Sri Lanka. This parcel of land is Neluma’s only home. Neluma is a born and bred, wild, Sri Lankan leopard who has lived a successful male leopard’s life in the heart of the park, in plain view of many park visitors. By the good fortune of his birth as a leopard born in the protected heart of Wilpattu, he has not had to cross the legal, physical boundaries of the National Park, nor deal with the very real dangers posed by poachers that are ever present in the peripheral areas. It may come as a surprise to some, but the protection in Wilpattu is not uniform across the extent of the National Park. An understaffed park affords little protection in terms of patrolling and enforcement to its wildlife, when the designated guardians of the park are tied down with other work that takes priority on a daily basis. They can do little more than react to incidents and information if a vehicle for transport to the area in question is available. Often the damage is done when rangers reach the site and the perpetrators have long gone. I do not wish to discuss anti-poaching measures or the failure of implementation of such in this article but suffice to say that the benign presence of wildlife loving visitors, especially in the central Villu zone of the park, provides passive protection for wildlife that live there. Wildlife friendly eyes and ears in the heart of the park matters and is the strongest argument of all for not closing the park in the dry season, not just in this exceptionally wet year.