Trapped in a well, killed in a drain: An excerpt from Leopard Diaries

Wildlife biologist Sanjay Gubbi’s new book aims to create for the leopard the kind of adoration the tiger enjoys. People just don’t know enough about it and its struggles for survival, he says. An excerpt from Leopard Diaries: The Rosette in India

A small number of people had gathered around the well in which the leopard had fallen. The well seemed to be around twenty-five feet deep, and was lined with granite stone blocks. It was clean, with none of the vegetation growth that is otherwise very normal in open wells. The leopard lay on its dry floor. The monsoon had already set in, so the day was cloudy, protecting the leopard from the harsh sunlight that would have otherwise stressed out the animal a lot more.

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About seven–eight of us stood around the well to keep an eye on the animal. We took turns to peer inside at the leopard as we waited for nets to be brought to capture it. A man in shorts and a white vest stood to my right with dry coconut fronds in his hand, fire lit to the ends. Cornered inside the dry well, the animal snarled at anyone with whom it made eye contact. For over an hour, the forest department planned ways to get the animal out; no one knew how to handle this situation. It was perhaps the first such incident in the town.

I thought the animal was tired from all the stress it was under. But I was wrong. Suddenly, the leopard tried jumping the vertical well. ‘It will never make it,’ I told a forest guard who was standing on the other side of the well. But to our astonishment, after a couple of failed attempts, the leopard made it out. As I watched, the animal jumped vertically about ten feet, held on to the stonelined wall with its claws, and made another jump. Before anyone could react, it was out of the confines of the well. It lunged at the man with the coconut fronds standing right next to me, and clawed him on his belly. I ducked and missed being injured by a couple of feet. I could clearly see three gashes on the left side of his stomach. He was immediately whisked away in the ambulance. This was my first close encounter of a leopard injuring a person.

Meanwhile, the leopard, confused with so many people around, started running randomly. The crowd that had been standing patiently at the edge of the farm broke loose. Everyone ran behind the leopard, shouting and shooing at the animal as though there was a riot. There was no way the crowd could now be controlled. The baffled animal hid inside a bush and refused to come out despite all the coaxing by people and the police. Finally, an adventurous policeman burst a tear gas shell, forcing the leopard out of the bush.

Running away from people again, the leopard entered a drain that was covered with granite slabs, at the edge of the farm. The granite slabs gave cover to the animal. As soon as it entered the drain, people mobbed the trench on both sides. While the forest officers thought of ways to deal with the situation, a policeman appeared out of nowhere, and with no instructions from anyone sprayed bullets from his automatic rifle into the drain. Everything was over within a few seconds. A couple of brave men in the crowd peeped into the drain and announced that the animal could be seen and was motionless. Another brave man with a C-shaped sickle in his hand, caught the leopard’s long tail and pulled it out.

The animal was motionless. A large hole on the right side of its stomach bore testimony to the bullet that had bored through its intestine. Its entrails were hanging out like an entangled rope. Two men held the forelimbs of the dead animal while a third held its back legs. People, armed with sickles, pickaxes and staves, marched behind the animal as it was laid down on a broken wall in the middle of the farm. Several others came to feel the animal before it was finally put in the forest department’s vehicle.

(Excerpted from Leopard Diaries: The Rosette in India ((Westland; 2021)