Forest dept allows killing of Garhwa leopard

Ranchi: The state government’s forest department has declared the problem leopard of Garhwa a “threat to human lives” and has issued a provisional order to shoot the animal if it poses a threat to any human being or members of the team which has been trying to capture it.
State chief wildlife warden Sasikar Samanta on Wednesday evening approved a proposal to declare the feline a threat and issued the provisional shooting order after the proposal was forwarded to him by Kumar Ashutosh, the regional chief conservator of forests (RCCF) of Palamu. The RCCF’s proposal was based on a recommendation by a five-member committee constituted under the Garhwa conservator of forests, Dilip Kumar Yadav. The committee had been set up to monitor the movement and activities of the animal and suggest a way forward. “Though the leopard has not killed any human beings since December 28, it poses a serious threat to the residents of the villages where it is based right now. There have also been incidents where it sneaked into the homes and killed goats in the dead of the night,” Samanta said.
In all, the leopard killed three children between December 11 and December 28 last year in Garhwa. In Latehar, one minor girl was attacked and she died during treatment.
“The leopard has not been declared an aberrant (man-eater) and the order to shoot is provisional. It means that the team can shoot the leopard if the animal poses a threat to them in the capturing process by mounting an attack. The shooting order will also be applicable if the leopard threatens to kill any other human being. The priority will still be to capture the animal,” Samanta added.
The leopard, a male, has managed so far to dodge the cages which have been set up for him by the team of experts led by Hyderabad-based hunter Shafath Ali Khan. After lying low for nearly 13 days, the leopard made its presence felt on the night of January 11 and killed a pig tied to one of the cages in Titaria village as bait but did not consume it. On the night of January 14, the leopard sneaked into the home of one Bablu Prasad in Tartardih village and killed a goat.
On January 15, the feline struck again at Kuswar village, roughly 600 kilometres from Tartardiah, and killed two goats. The animal was sighted outside Kuswar again on the night of January 17. However, the leopard changed its course again on Wednesday and moved away from Kuswar as a pack of wolves is at the edge of the village. Notably, Kuswar is the village where it made its last human kill on December 28. “The leopard is not taking the bait and is very shy. We dragged the carcass of the half-eaten goat out on a field (in Tartardih) and waited on a terrace through the night with my tranquiliser gun, but it did not return,” Khan said.