Leopard that entered Rajkot zoo caged

Rajkot: The leopard that had entered the Rajkot Municipal Corporation-managed Pradyuman Park zoo and killed a deer on Sunday night was captured on Friday by the forest department. It will be released in deep forest. However, the forest officials are yet not clear if the leopard was inside the zoo for the past five days or if it moved out of the zoo.
Talking to TOI, Rajkot zoo superintendent R K Hirpara said, “It is a male leopard aged 5 to 6 years. The forest department will decide where to release it.”
“We do not know about the movement of the leopard for the past five days as there is no no evidence like pug mark or droppings to prove its presence in the zoo,” he added. The leopard had entered the zoo on Sunday night after jumping the backside wall and later preyed on a deer in an open area. Forest officials believe it had come from Hingolgadh near Jasdan or from Chotila side.
The zoo authorities are also planning to take steps to prevent such incidents in the future. The zoo has 39 cameras installed inside the premises and the authorities said that more cameras will be installed to monitor movement of animals.
Forest officials said that the height of the zoo’s back wall is 12 foot. They said that leopard may have climbed a tree and then jumped inside the zoo premises. The zoo officials plan to remove the trees on the back side of the zoo and also ask PGVCL to remove the electric poll so that no other wild animals can jump inside again.