Wildlife of
Kerala

Primary Threats

• Forest and wetland habitats in the Western Ghats foothills and midlands are lost or broken by tea/coffee/rubber farms, expanding settlements, and paddy field and backwater filling around Vembanad-Kol and other estuaries. Small, isolated patches harm elephants, tigers and endemic amphibians and reptiles.
• Road widening, increased traffic on mountain pass roads, rail lines, power transmission corridors, and new tourism-support infrastructure increase fragmentation and wildlife mortality. Linear barriers also intensify elephant and leopard conflict by constraining movement between forest blocks (notably across Wayanad-Nilambur-Nagarahole linkages and the Periyar landscape).
• Granite/laterite quarrying and associated haul roads in parts of the Western Ghats and midlands cause direct habitat removal, slope destabilization, and chronic disturbance. Quarry clusters can also affect stream headwaters that many endemic fish and amphibians depend on.
• Backwaters and urban rivers receive untreated/partly treated sewage, plastic waste, and industrial effluents (especially near major urban centers and port/industrial areas). Nutrient loading drives eutrophication in lakes/estuaries (including Vembanad-Kol), impacting fish nurseries and waterbird feeding habitats; pesticide runoff from plantations and agriculture affects freshwater biodiversity.
• High fishing intensity along the Arabian Sea coast and in estuaries/backwaters can reduce stocks and alter food webs; bycatch threatens sea turtles and marine mammals. Juvenile fish habitat in mangroves and estuarine channels is stressed by both fishing pressure and habitat degradation.
• In forest understoreys, invasive plants such as Lantana camara and Mikania micrantha suppress native regeneration and reduce forage quality, complicating habitat restoration in buffer areas. In wetlands, water hyacinth and other invasives can choke canals and lake margins, degrading bird and fish habitat in backwater systems.
• Shifts in monsoon intensity and timing increase flood/landslide risk in the Ghats and salinity intrusion in low-lying coastal wetlands. Warming and altered rainfall can compress montane forest-grassland niches, stress endemic amphibians, and change phenology/fruiting patterns that species like hornbills and primates rely on.
• Elephant crop raiding and property damage are chronic in districts bordering large forests (notably Wayanad, Idukki, Palakkad), with occasional human and elephant fatalities. Leopards and other carnivores enter peri-urban and plantation areas, and conflict escalates where forest corridors are pinched by settlements and farms.
• High visitation in hill stations and protected-area fringes (e.g., Munnar/Eravikulam landscape, Wayanad circuits) increases noise, waste, off-road pressure, and disturbance at sensitive sites. Seasonal congregation sites for waterbirds in wetlands are also affected by boating and shoreline development.
• Illegal trade risks persist for high-value species and products (pangolins, elephant ivory, certain reptiles), enabled by road connectivity to neighboring states and demand networks. Even low-level offtake can be serious for slow-breeding species.
• While broadly reduced compared to past decades, localized snaring and opportunistic hunting still occurs in some forest-edge and plantation mosaics, impacting small ungulates and ground-dwelling fauna and indirectly affecting predator dynamics.
• Zoonotic and wildlife diseases, like tick‑borne Kyasanur Forest Disease in parts of the Western Ghats, threaten people and wildlife management. They increase pressure to disturb habitats and change human access. Spillover risk rises where livestock, dogs, and wild animals meet at forest edges.
• Dams, river regulation, sand mining, canalization, and shoreline hardening modify aquatic systems that connect the Ghats to the coast. In wetlands/backwaters, hydrological alteration and reduced flushing can worsen algal blooms and degrade fish breeding and bird habitat.
• Expansion/intensification of plantations and cash crops in the Ghats foothills and midlands simplifies habitat structure and reduces native tree cover, narrowing movement routes for arboreal and forest-dependent species and increasing edge effects.
• Growth around Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, and coastal corridors increases demand for land, water, and infrastructure, and intensifies waste loads into rivers/estuaries. Urban sprawl also increases conflict risk where development interfaces with wetlands and forest edges.