Shot by photojournalist Steve Winter, the image is part of a series of photographs accompanying American non-fiction writer Richard Conniff’s National Geographic Magazine story on the evolving relationship—and contest—between humans and leopards.

“India may be the real test of survival in a crowded world—and perhaps a model for it—because leopards live there in large numbers, outside protected areas,” Conniff writes, “and in astonishing proximity to people.”

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