An Apex Predator's Paradise
Yala National Park in southern Sri Lanka is the global center for leopard population density. Research in the park's most studied area, Block I, has recorded densities as high as one leopard per square kilometer. This concentration of Panthera pardus kotiya, the island's unique leopard subspecies, is possible because of a specific ecological situation: the absence of other, larger predators. Unlike in mainland Asia or Africa where leopards compete with tigers and lions, the Sri Lankan leopard is the undisputed apex predator.
This top-predator status grants them unchallenged access to a plentiful food supply. The park's mosaic of monsoon forest, scrub jungle, and grasslands supports large populations of prey animals. The leopard's diet in Yala consists mainly of Sri Lankan axis deer (Axis axis), but they also hunt sambar, wild boar (Sus scrofa), and monkeys. With no rivals to steal their kills, leopards here do not need to drag their meals up into trees, a behavior common among their African relatives. This lack of competition also influences their behavior, making them less strictly nocturnal and more visible during the daytime compared to leopards in other parts of the world.