A full-grown leopard strayed into Raigunj and injured 15 persons

A full-grown leopard strayed into Raigunj and triggered panic in the north Bengal town. It was finally trapped and tranquilized by foresters after a cat-and-mouse game with locals, NGO workers and cops that lasted for nearly 11 hours.
This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 3 January 2017.

Raigunj does not have any forest cover that can be considered ideal for leopards and there has been no sighting ever been reported from the green patches around it. In the opinion of foresters, the animal must have crossed over from Bihar. As per a Wildlife Institute of India study, Bihar at present is home to around 32 wild leopards and,experts believe that the figure could be much more because many more leopards live outside the protected areas of the state.
Two years ago, there was a similar incident of a leopard straying into an urban settlement in Siliguri. Obviously, the endangered species is fast losing ground due to rapid urbanization. A recent survey by Wildlife Institute of India has put the leopard population in India at 12,000-14,000 and, at least 50% of them live outside protected areas and are vulnerable to conflict with humans.
Data collected by Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) indicates 436 leopard deaths during 2016. This includes 154 cases of poaching.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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