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Watch: 10-month-old leopard cub rescued from a 40-feet deep well; reunited with its mother

The incident took place in Maharashtra's Pune district

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A 10-month-old female leopard cub was saved from certain death, after a wildlife rescue organisation along with the forest department not only managed to rescue it from a 40 feet deep well but also reunited it with its mother.

The incident occurred on Saturday afternoon in Alegaon Paga, a village located in Shirur Taluka of Pune district in Maharashtra. It was a local farmer who first saw the leopard trapped in the well and was paddling to stay afloat after which the he immediately alerted the forest department. 

Even as the forest team from Shirur range rushed to the spot Range Forest Officer (RFO) Tushar Dhamdhere, in turn alerted the Wildlife SOS team at the Manikdoh Leopard Rescue Center (MLRC) in Junnar for assistance. The forest department with help of locals meanwhile lowered a wooden ladder into the well so that the leopard could use it as a temporary support and did not drown due to exhaustion from paddling in the well.

Dr Ajay Deshmukh, Senior Veterinarian at the MLRC who received a call around 3pm left with his team left for a 148-kilometre journey for Shirur and reached around 5.30 pm.

“We lowered our trap cage into the well and seeing it the leopard quickly jumped in it and once we were sure that the leopard was safely trapped we pulled the cage out,” said Deshmukh adding that the cub must have wandered into the field out of curiosity and had the misfortune of falling into the uncovered well.

Post the rescue the leopard cub was thoroughly examined by Deshmukh and his team who found out that the female cub was old enough to be released back into the wild. “The villagers had reported that the mother leopard was also spotted in the vicinity so later in the night we took the cub to the same field and released it so that it could find its mother,” he informed.

As per the vet, they receive rescue calls about animals trapped inside wells, very often as wells in most villages remain exposed due to lack of proper net covers. “We are glad to see that people are becoming more sensitised towards wild animals that share the surrounding habitats and ensure that they are rescued from such near death situations,” he added.

Kartick Satyanarayan, CEO and Co-founder Wildlife SOS said that they were grateful to the forest department for making this rescue a success and for helping manage the crowd. “Such cases have been increasing in the recent years and the main reason behind this appears to be the lack of proper covers and fencing around wells. The issue cannot be taken lightly. It is not just leopards, a species protected under schedule I of the wildlife protection act 1972, that are vulnerable to these wells, but also several other species that may fall in accidentally, with potentially fatal results,” he said.

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