HYDERABAD:
After five months of playing hide and seek, the leopard that had made
the sprawling International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid
Tropics (ICRISAT) campus its home, was finally captured early on Sunday.
The five-year-old big cat was at large ever since it was spotted on the
campus five months ago. Several attempts were made by forest officials
to trap it, including with live bait and even a perfume containing
pheromones. When these did not work, they tried to lure it with a female
panther brought from the zoo. But the animal, which the officials
termed as 'smart', remained elusive. But on Sunday morning its luck ran
out after it got caught in a snare kept near a live bait. The zoo staff
who reached the spot after being informed by Icrisat officials
tranquilized and relieved the leopard from the trap. Its health was
assessed and when veterinarians gave the go ahead, it was transported to
Mannanur in the Srisailam Tiger Reserve area, about 200 km from
Patancheru, where it was let loose.
"It is a huge sigh of
relief for us. We had tried everything in the last few months to trap
the leopard. We tracked its movements with cameras and could see how it
eluded us after getting nearly caught on many occasions," said Telangana
chief wildlife officer P K Sharma.
Sharma
said Icrisat campus was an ideal environment for the leopard to
survive owing to the abundance in availability of food and thick forest
cover. Luckily, despite its prolonged stay on the campus, it did not
attack any humans.
Officials suspect that the leopard could
have strayed from the Narasapur forest reserve, 20 km away from
Patancheru. Forest officials said it was not uncommon for big cats to
stray near human settlements when food becomes scarce in their habitats.
source
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