BENGALURU: A leopard that made two visits to an apartment complex on Begur Road in Yelenahalli in south Bengaluru in the latter half of January was rescued from the same locality early Monday. It walked into a cage that forest officials had set up behind the complex, Prestige Song of the South. A goat was used to lure it.
The four-year-old male cat has been shifted to the Bannerghatta Biological Park, and it’s healthy, said range forest officer (KR Puram) Shivaratrikesha. A CCTV camera caught the leopard roaming around in the open car park of the 33-acre complex around 5.30am on January 23. It came from the nearby Bannerghatta forest. Police and forest teams rushed to the scene around 6am and conducted a six-hour search with no luck.
Leopard shifted to Bannerghatta
At 8.30pm the same day, the leopard was seen scaling the compound wall. The forest team placed cages at four locations and used a drone to survey the area, but there was no trace of it.
Early Monday, the leopard walked into one of the traps. “A closer examination confirmed it was the leopard spotted on January 23,” assistant conservator of forest (Bengaluru Urban) G Venkatesh said.
There are boulders on the edge of the vacant land and a lake. “Stray dogs live here. So food, shelter and water were readily available here,” he added. Residents of the complex are relieved. “We were worried as the leopard came here twice. We limited kids’ playing time and started walking in groups,” a resident said.