VIDEO: Leopard Terrorises Hospital Patients In Indian City Rampage

“This leopard didn’t kill anyone, it was hardly a rampage; it was merely hungry! Humans can’t take away their natural habitat & expect them to just move on! It is humans that are at fault here; by taking away the leopards land etc. Animals go where the food is, they are very territorial, taking away their land involves taking away their food supply, so of course they are going to look elsewhere for food! 

“This poor Leopard must have been scared to death, from the deafening crowd outside…the Forest Rangers or Police should have cord-end off the area & let the Leopard leave the same way it came in! The crowds were ridiculous, so I have no pity for anyone who was harmed…they shouldn’t have been so bloody nosey or so loud! I’m just praying the leopard isn’t caught by locals; if it is, they will surely make it pay, like they have with others they have captured….by burning it to death in a cage or beating it to death!! (As in the picture below) “

By Dean Nelson, New Delhi 2:51PM GMT 24 Feb 2014

As a man-eating tiger preys on villagers in the jungle, a leopard is prowling an Indian city’s streets.

Soldiers, police and wildlife experts were today hunting a leopard which walked into a hospital ward in Meerut, a large city in northern India, and caused panic among staff and patients.

The big cat was first spotted by a timber merchant who saw it emerging from a lavatory in his warehouse and alerted the police on Sunday morning.

Two people in a large crowd which gathered at the site were reported to have been attacked by the leopard after one of them lifted a plank under which it had been hiding.

It was later seen by a caretaker at the Meerut Cantonment Hospital in the heart of the city’s military area where it walked onto a ward where several men were being treated.

Staff at the hospital helped the patients escape the ward and then locked the doors to trap the leopard inside.

It managed to escape and a hunt is now under way to track it down.

“The leopard was last spotted on Monday at around 3:30am on a road near the hospital but since then there have been no sightings. We are keeping a vigil but there is a strong possibility that it has returned to its natural habitat,” said Abhishek Singh, Assistant Superintendent of Police, Meerut.

“It was hit by a tranquilizer dart but we are not sure how effective that was. The animal was scared and was running away from people and in this commotion few people were injured. We were trying to control the crowds from getting near the leopard,” he added.

This poor leopard was beaten to death by villagers!

Ashok Kumar of the Wildlife Trust of India said more leopards are straying into towns because humans are increasingly encroaching on their habitats.

“This is happening very frequently because their habitats are shrinking and they come into human habitation for food and space,” he said. “So one can not say these animals are hunting humans for food, they are merely looking for food because humans took their food source away…if someone gets in their way & makes them feel threatened; one can’t blame the animal, it’s only acting on instinct!!”

Leopard enters Meerut hospital, attacks patients: Video

Published on 24 Feb 2014

High alert has been sounded in Meerut city after a leopard entered a hospital Sunday. A police inspector and media person got injured when they ventured too close to the irritated leopard. The big cat was spotted by a caretaker as it was entering the hospital.

News Link:–http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/10658173/Leopard-terrorises-hospital-patients-in-Indian-city-rampage.html

Leopard caught in wire snare dies

MYSORE: A leopard trapped in a wire snare inside Bandipur tiger reserve died on Friday.

This comes two months after a gang of poachers was arrested for placing jaw traps inside the Biligiri Ranga Tiger (BRT) wildlife sanctuary.

Not related. 

Authorities suspect that the trap was laid by locals to catch a boar or a hare. The leopard, around 8 years, was found dead in a snare in N Begur forest range near Katwalu village. The feline died because of the injuries sustained while trying to claw out of the snare, said forest officials. A Special Tiger Protection Force team has been asked to probe the crime along with jurisdiction forest officers, said Kumar Pushkar, director, Bandipur Tiger Reserve.

Authorities have intensified checks inside the forest and said that they have not discovered any other snares in the reserved area. Pushkar ruled out the role of any organized gang laying the trap. “Going by the way the trap was laid we are sure that it was done by the locals,” he added.

In July BRT reserve authorities had arrested a six-member gang from Haryana for laying jaw traps for tigers inside the reserve area. The jaw traps would be activated in the night. In the morning they would be dismantled and stowed away.

Following their arrest, patrolling was intensified and checks were conducted to discover traps.

Former Kumki Kavita unwell

Kavita, an elephant from the K Gudi elephant camp, a regular at the Dasara celebrations since years is battling for survival.

The 75-year-old kumki (accompanying) elephant has poor vision in one eye because of which it has been a victim of minor accidents in the forest. Recently it stumbled in the forest injuring herself badly.

Kavita

The elephant is weak and unwell from the past 15 days. No veterinarian from the department has visited K Gudi camp to treat the elephant. “It is aged and there is no point in treating it,” allegedly said a doctor when he was told of the elephant’s suffering.

However, Biligiri Ranga Tiger (BRT) wildlife sanctuary director Vijaya Mohan Raj denied that elephants in the camps are being neglected . He denied allegations that Kavita was not being treated. “In fact, we have started giving special food to the elephant so that she gains energy. She is responding to treatment.” he said.

News Link:-http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-09-15/mysore/33862059_1_jaw-traps-bandipur-tiger-reserve-elephant

Centre Puts Elephant Capture Plan On Hold

KOLKATA: Buckling under pressure from the wildlife activists and NGOs, the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) has put on hold the plan to capture four wild elephants in Bengal for domestic use.

Elephant Human Conflict

New Delhi-based NGOs like Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) and the Wildlife Protection Society of India ( WPSI) had taken up the issue with the MoEF, seeking more clarity on the elephant capturing plan.

Confirming the news, additional director general wildlife, MoEF, Jagdish Kishwan said that the plan has been put on hold. However, he refused to give further details. Chief wildlife warden in Bengal, S B Mondal, said that he has received a letter from the Centre on Monday stating that the plan has been suspended for now.

Permission for the elephant capturing was sought way back in 2000. But the MoEF on February 16 this year gave permission to the state to capture four sub-adult elephants from Dalma herd for captive use. Wildlife Trust of India’s conflict mitigation department head Anil Kumar Singh said they had sent a letter to the MoEF a couple of weeks back. “In Bengal, this is a major issue. And this happens due to large scale habitat loss for elephants. But capturing 4 elephants won’t solve the problem, rather it will start a bad trend,” he added.

Eminent ecologist Raman Sukumar, known for his work on elephant ecology and human wildlife conflict, said there has to be a detailed study before embarking upon such plans.

“The state should conduct a study on the routes used by the elephants, whether the forest patches are viable of holding the elephant population and identify the pachyderms which mostly lead the conflict. Unless these historical records are obtained, the entire effort to capture the elephants will remain half-hearted and won’t serve the purpose in the long run,” said Sukumar, who is also a professor with the Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.

Echoing his view, WTI’s executive director, Vivek Menon, said: “Elephant is a social animal and capturing four from a herd will only make them more aggressive. As a member of the elephant task force in 2011, I had suggested setting up of a conflict mitigation task force in Bengal with elephant experts and ecologists, who will track the elephant behaviour, routes they follow to migrate towards south Bengal, find the number of pachyderms entering every year, damage caused by these elephants and identify the rogue jumbos.”

WPSI’s executive director Belinda Wright said the problem is not the elephants, but the habitat loss. “Sub-adult or young elephants are not responsible for the conflict. The depredation is led mostly by the big elephants. Even if the forest officials capture them, they won’t be able to train those jumbos,” Wright said, adding that she had taken up the issue with some experts in Sri Lanka, where the problem is very much prevalent.

In 1977, elephants were brought under the Schedule I of Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, and such captures were made illegal. But the Centre, under Section 12 of the same act, can give permission for capture for population control and scientific research.

News Link:–http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/Centre-puts-elephant-capture-plan-on-hold/articleshow/15499284.cms?intenttarget=no