ABSTRACT Human‐caused mortality threatens the Sri Lankan leopard ( Panthera pardus kotiya ), yet national patterns remain poorly quantified. We compiled 17 years (2008–2024) of islandwide human‐caused leopard deaths and evaluated demographic patterns, sex biases, cause‐habitat associations, temporal trends, and spatial variation in the relative likelihood of recorded incidents. We documented 164 deaths (9.6 ± 4.5 records year −1 ) and detected an increase through time (Kendall's τ = 0.58, p < 0.01). Mortality records were male‐biased (68.4%; χ ² = 64.68, p < 0.001) and dominated by adults (87.3%). Among cases with known cause ( n = 138), snares were most frequent (62.3%) and were concentrated in plantations ( n = 52, 46.3%). Records were highly clustered in the central highlands (Central Province, n = 77, 46.9%), with a single district (Nuwara Eliya; 4.4% of the estimated leopard range in the country) contributing 38.4% of the records. Mitigation should prioritize snare reduction and enforcement in highland plantation landscapes.
Weerakkody et al. (Fri,) studied this question.