A leopard entered the Jollygrant Airport premises here on Tuesday creating a scare among the airport staff.
A CISF jawan at the airport spotted a wild animal jumping over the boundary walls into the premises and hiding itself in a pipe near the new terminal building on Tuesday morning, Jollygrant Airport Director G K Gautam said.
Though the big cat could not immediately be identified because of the distance, the airport authorities informed the Thano range of Dehradun forest division about the incident.
The pipe was shut on either side to ensure that the wild animal does not come out. However, flight operations remained unaffected at the airport which is surrounded by reserve forest areas on three sides, Gautam said.
Subsequently, when the pipe was drilled to rescue the animal, it was identified as a young leopard, Sub Divisional Forest Officer G S Martolia said.
Efforts are still underway to safely rescue the big cat, he said.
Wild animals like leopards, wolves and jackals have been rescued at the airport in the past as well.
The Jollygrant Airport is surrounded by reserve forests where wild animals roam around freely.
Recently, in an alarming incident, a leopard entered a girls' hostel in Guwahati, Assam where it took authorities nearly three hours to tranquilise the big cat.
The incident occurred on Monday morning and caused alarm among locals residents of the area where the hostel was situated. According to a report in Hindustan Times, the animal entered the hostel premises in the wee hours of Monday morning and then happened to get trapped under a cane sofa owned by the hostel-owner.
At the time, the hostel contained 15 girls who had been living there. The sedated animal was then sent to a zoo where it will be tested for injuries and then set free into the wild after being fitted with a microchip that can help forest officials track its movements.