E-Paper
Day after, three cages & eight camera traps installed to capture leopard in Daund
While no such activity was traced, the department is hopeful that the leopard responsible for the attack will be captured in the next two to three days
Following the death of a two-and-a-half-month-old boy in a leopard attack in Daund tehsil on Sunday, the Pune forest department on Monday, November 18, set up three cages and eight camera traps in the area where the tragedy occurred. Besides, thermal drone surveillance was conducted Sunday night to track leopard activity in the area. While no such activity was traced, the department is hopeful that the leopard responsible for the attack will be captured in the next two to three days.
30 hours after the leopard attack incident, forest department managed to capture leopard just 100 metre away from the incident site. As per the official information, the leopard captured in cage is a sub adult male leopard, he would be transferred to the Transit Treatment Centre in Bavdhan soon.
Deepak Pawar, assistant conservator of forests, Pune forest department, said, “The department is now trying to capture the leopard in the area where the incident occurred. For this, we have installed three cages and eight camera traps. We are hopeful that in the next two to three days, the leopard will be captured.”
On Sunday, November 17, the two-and-a-half-month-old son of a farm labourer lost his life in a leopard attack in the Boripardhi area of Kedgaon village in Daund tehsil. This is the ninth such (human) death in a leopard attack in the Pune district since March this year. Soon after the incident, a team of forest officials reached the spot and inspected the area. Samples were collected for DNA testing. Meanwhile, a post-mortem of the baby’s dead body was conducted Monday morning at Sassoon General Hospital in Pune. The body was then handed over first to the forest department and later to the boy’s family, Pawar said.
Growing instances of leopard attacks in Pune district have become a serious cause for concern. While the man-leopard conflict was earlier restricted to areas such as Junnar, Ambegaon and Shirur, it is now shifting to other areas like Daund as well, posing a big challenge for the forest department.
