NAGPUR: The mystery of the missing leopardess persists, with a male leopard caught in a camera trap eating a cattle kill at Pipal Tola village of Goregaon range. The forest department had high hopes that the mother leopard was alive after a cattle kill was spotted in the area on Sunday morning by a monitoring team.
However, the recordings of the camera trap deployed by the forest department revealed that a male leopard was behind the attack, thus ruling out the possibility of the leopardess surviving.
"After killing the cattle, the male leopard returned again on Sunday night to feed on its kill and got clicked in the camera. There are hardly any chances that the mother leopard was killed by the male leopard as such deadly fights are rare between leopards. The most likely possibility now is that the leopardess has been poached," said honorary wildlife warden of Gondia Sawan Bahekar.
On the other hand, the forest department still seems unwilling to accept the fact that the case relates to poaching. "At this point, we cannot be sure what has happened to the mother leopard and will continue our search operation for some more days. Till now, we have found no signs suggesting that the leopardess has been poached," said assistant conservator of forest (ACF) of Gondia forest division Ashwin Thakar. He added that there are chances that the male leopard belongs to the same family as it has been sighted in the same territory. "The female cub will be shifted to Maharajbagh zoo if the mother is not found," he said.
