Uttarakhand forest department to catch, rehabilitate ‘killer’ leopard

The forest department has given permission to tranquilise and rehabilitate a leopard that killed a four-year-old girl in Bageshwar district on September 3

The forest department has given permission to tranquilise and rehabilitate a leopard that killed a four-year-old girl in Bageshwar district on September 3.

A leopard was stuck in a snare, probably installed by tribals to catch animals such as rabbit and boar. (HT File Photo)

The decision comes after local people demanded that the leopard be declared a man-eater and killed.

RK Singh, divisional forest officer of Bageshwar, said: “Our team has started searching for the leopard. After we tranquilise it, the animal will be shifted to either a national park or a mini zoo in Almora.”

Singh said the four-year-old girl was killed by the leopard at Sailakhniyaari village in Garud tehsil on September 4 when she was playing in her house compound.

He said her body was later recovered from a forest.

This is not the first such incident in Bageshwar district. In June, angry villagers in Harinagari area set a forest afire after a leopard killed a seven-year-old boy.

The principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife) had given permission for “destroying the leopard”. The animal was later killed by a hunter assigned by the forest department. In March, the same leopard was suspected to have killed a four-year-old child in the same area.