‘Man-eater’ leopard caged in Uttarakhand’s Pauri

A well grown up female leopard that is suspected to have killed a man was caged on Friday night in Pauri district’s Sundrai village, an official said on Saturday.

The forest department set up a cage in a bus stop shed in Kolkhandi where the leopard had attacked and killed Virendra Kumar, 68, on Friday afternoon.

Villagers spotted badly mutilated and half-eaten body of Kumar at the shed and informed the forest officials in Damdeval.

The people of the area are gripped with a sense of fear and complained that wild animals were lurking near the villages due to the forest fire and posing threat to their lives and domestic animals.

The caged leopard is about 8 years old and on prima facie, it appears that it had killed the man on Friday afternoon because it came exactly to the same spot at night where it made a kill in the afternoon, said Laxman Singh, DFO Garhwal forest division.

The caged leopard is being sent to Chiryapur leopard rescue centre at Haridwar, he said.

Uttarakhand is one state which has a high prevalence of man-leopard conflict. The last survey in 2008 reported over 2,600 leopards in the mountain state. Forest statistics suggests nearly 300 humans killed in leopard attacks since the state’s formation in 2000.