Two leopards rescued in less than 24 hours in Maharashtra

PUNE: In a late-night operation recently, conservation organisation Wildlife SOS and the Maharashtra Forest Department rescued a 7-year-old leopard from a 30-foot-deep well in Navalewadi village, which comes under the Otur Forest Range in the Pune district.
The leopard was rescued and released after being declared fit by the NGO’s veterinary team.
In another incident, a male leopard estimated to be 6-8 years old, was rescued after it was spotted feeding on livestock near Pachunda village in Newasa Forest Range, situated in Ahmednagar Forest Division.
Residents of Navalewadi village heard an unfamiliar sound coming from a nearby well. Upon further investigation, they discovered that a leopard had fallen into the nearly 30-foot-deep well. The villagers found the animal struggling to stay afloat and immediately called the Maharashtra Forest Department, who informed the Wildlife SOS team.
Once the teams arrived, the rescue operation was set in motion. A trap cage was lowered into the well and after a 30-minute long effort, the leopard was safely pulled out from the well. A preliminary health check-up was conducted by the Wildlife SOS veterinary team, and the leopard was declared fit and released back into the wild.
Kartick Satyanarayan, Co-founder and CEO, Wildlife SOS said, “We are grateful to the forest department and appreciate the villagers' alertness for making this rescue a success. Open wells are a bane for wild animals, especially the nocturnal ones. Most of the time, the animals are unaware that there is a hole in the ground. They might be foraging at night or running across the landscape and simply fall in. After years of rescuing wild animals from open wells, Wildlife SOS is now trying to solve the problem at the root and cover open wells across rural Maharashtra.”
There are numerous wells present across the landscape shared by leopards, nilgai antelope, Striped hyenas, Sloth bears and humans, but the abandoned and unprotected open wells with no sidewall protection pose a very serious danger to animal lives. Every village has 30 to 50 wells, some of which can be as deep as 50 to 100 feet and can be hazardous to any living creature who accidentally falls inside resulting in fatal injuries or death by drowning.