Additional protection camps, camera traps to be set up to capture leopard in Aarey

The Maharashtra forest department will be setting up four additional protection camps in Aarey Colony, in addition to installing 19 more camera traps in the area, in a bid to capture a two-year old, sub-adult female leopard responsible for attacks on eight people in the past 45 days.

The Maharashtra forest department will be setting up four additional protection camps in Aarey Colony, in addition to installing 19 more camera traps in the area, in a bid to capture a two-year old, sub-adult female leopard responsible for attacks on eight people in the past 45 days.

The Maharashtra forest department will be setting up four additional protection camps in Aarey Colony, in addition to installing 19 more camera traps in the area, in a bid to capture a two-year old, sub-adult female leopard responsible for attacks on eight people in the past 45 days. (HT File)

The forest department on Friday night also installed a fifth cage trap near dairy unit number 13, where a 14-year-old boy was attacked by the leopard earlier in the day.

“We require a total of 30 camera traps, including the 11 we have already installed. And we have one protection camp in the area, but another four are being set up to lessen our response time to any other attack which may happen. We are also making announcements in the evening, warning people to not go into densely-wooded areas, and to travel in groups. We suspect that the leopard is attacking people because she is a sub-adult and is learning to hunt,” said Gajendra Hire, deputy conservator of forests (Thane), who is coordinating the response between experts, the forest department, citizens and volunteer organisations.

Since August 31, eight people in Aarey Colony, including a 68-year-old woman and a four-year-old child, have sustained injuries after the leopard charged at them. A sub-adult leopard aged between one-and-a-half to two years was captured in the early hours of October 1, but was later identified to be a different individual than the female behind the recent attacks, in what are the first signs of human-leopard conflict in the region since 2017.

“You can’t tranquilise a free-ranging leopard because its instinct will be to run away. In the 15 minutes it takes to become sedated, it could enter a house, for example, and wake up hours later around humans. It’s not feasible. The forest department is doing the right thing by involving citizens and volunteer organisations, and is doing their best to trap the animal in a cage. As compared to similar spates of attacks in say 2010-11 or 2016-17, the current situation does not have any signs of panic or alarmism, and Aarey residents seem to have developed a trust in the administration,” said Vidya Athreya, an ecologist with close to two decades’ experience in studying human-wildlife conflict.

Once the leopard is trapped, the forest department, along with experts, will conduct an examination, after which a committee will decide on how and where to release the animal.

“Until the creature has been captured, we cannot comment on future steps,” said Hire, adding that their response will be scaled up further if the animal continues to remain elusive.