YET ANOTHER CASE: It was found near Aluva village which is 15km from the heart of city
The forest department was once again alerted to the presence of a leopard in Gandhinagar district. This time the alert came after pug marks of the wildcat were found on the Sabarmati riverbed close to Aluva Village in the district. A forest official in the know said that the department has set up traps to cage the beast but as of now no sighting has been reported.
"The pug marks found has been that of a leopard but neither the forest officials nor the people who first reported the pug marks have sighted the animal. In all probability, the animal was there in the early morning," said the forest official.
An official said that the animal could have come from Sabarkantha or Banaskantha or even Panchmahals. "It is not uncommon to find the animal in the district here although it usually does not venture into urban areas," another official said.
The forest official said that earlier they had also set up a trap in Piplaj after there were reports of sighting of a leopard in the area. In that case, too the department could neither trap the animal nor could it get any reports of the confirmed sighting.
It should be noted that Aluva village is around 15 km away from the Sachivalaya where a leopard had in the first week of November entered the high-security zone on a Sunday night.
It was caught on CCTV cameras and the government had pressed into service more than 300 government staff including forest and police department officials for the rescue operation. The operation went on for twelve hours before the animal was captured. At that time the department had said that the leopard had entered the complex after travelling through the ravines of the Sabarmati river, probably in search of a prey.
It was believed that the blue bulls that are commonly found in the wilderness near the sachivalay were what had brought the wildcat to the area.
Twenty days after the Leopard entered the Sachivalaya, there was another report of the wildcat being sighted around the capitol but the department had rubbished the rumours.
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