As many as eight leopards have died in Uttarakhand in the past six days. The ninth leopard, already announced as a man-eater in Gairsen Forest Division, is being traced by a hired game hunter and will be eliminated soon.
Going by the record last week, Uttarakhand has been witness to the deaths of eight leopards including two man-eaters. The latest in the series were two big cats shot down at Gairsen and Tehri Forest Divisions by hired shooters late on Thursday night.
“Three leopards were declared man-eaters early this month. Even as two of these were eliminated last night, a hunt is on for a third animal in Gairsen division,” Paramjit Singh, Conservator, Forest, and State anti-poaching cell head, said.
According to Singh, the leopards shot on Thursday night had killed around seven people including a five-year-old girl in January. Following this, forest officials had to face public wrath forcing the district administration to raise a demand with the office of the State chief wildlife warden of declaring the leopards man-eaters.
Thursday’s leopard killings have taken the total leopard death count to eight in the past six days. Five of them have occurred in the last three days alone. This includes the accidental death of one male leopard in Dehradun Forest Division on February 17. Two cubs were found dead in Almora the very next day while another two including one female and a male leopard were shot dead on Thursday night. A ninth leopard death is likely to take place in Gairsen Forest Division anytime before the expiry of a one-month deadline, a source said.
Meanwhile, the dead bodies of the two leopards killed last night have been sent for post-mortem. “We want to establish if there was any specific reason for leopards turning into man-eaters. It’s also likely that a serious injury might have rendered them unfit to hunt forest animals that led them to prey upon humans,” Singh said.
