The leopard has been strangely killing cattle and dogs for the past few days, but not eating them completely.
Under fire from villagers near Murbad taluka over two fatal attacks by a leopard in a span of three days, Forest department immediately sought orders to shoot the leopard from wildlife headquarters at Nagpur, on Sunday evening and have been given a go ahead.
It was on Sunday evening that the leopard who has gained a lot of notoriety in the last one week killed a man from Palu village in Murbad taluka. Before this a 54 year old women Mirabai Vare a resident of Singapur village was attacked on Friday evening and her mauled body was found 100 meters away from a paddy field.
The second attack incensed the locals who even attacked the forest department staff and vandalized vehicles on Sunday. However as things cooled down the Thane territorial wing has sent its additional staff and even the leopard rescue team from Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) reached the location late on Sunday night.
“It was immediately after the second attack we decided to seek the orders to shoot the leopard from Chief Wildlife Warden at Nagpur as precaution and were given the green signal as situation has got really tense. However our first priority is to tranquilize and trap the leopard and hence we have a huge staff trying to track the leopard,” said KP Singh, chief conservator of forest (CCF) for Thane territorial. He informed that the landscape where the leopard was roaming was open and huge so it was not an easy task and a joint operation along with police officials as well as district administration had been launched.
"We are doing everything in our capacity and there have been five cages deployed since Sunday set at various places," he said adding that both the families have been given initial part of the compensation and once the paperwork is completed will be handed the total remaining amount.
Meanwhile, senior forest officials said that leopards were never seen in this area and they strongly suspected that these could be leopards trapped elsewhere and released nearby.
"This activity of catching leopard from one territory and leaving it outside its original area, which is carried out by several forest divisions needs to be curbed as it has only been increasing the conflict. Even in this case the way leopard has been going about killing dogs and goats it seems it is not a resident leopard," added a senior forest official stating that as it is this area leopard was never reported.
Mayur Kamath, honorary wildlife warden for Mumbai and state wildlife board member, said that cages have been set and on couple of occasions the leopard came extremely close to the trap but left.
"Along with forest staff from Tokawade we are moving in villages and having awareness sessions," he said, adding that they are advising locals to follow precautions by keeping their animals at a safe location as well as being careful while moving out post evening and wee hours of morning.
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 "Leopard AFP")
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