How to catch a hurt leopard

[Guest guest]

The Times of India Sunday, 15 October, 2006

 

How to catch a hurt leopard

 

If you are a forest official at the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve, it would involve

bamboo sticks, ropes and lots of brute force

By Manjari Mishra/TNN

 

Lucknow: Wildlife lovers may cry themselves hoarse about the general apathy

towards wild animals, but with forest officials themselves breaking the law

blatantly, there seems little hope of their message getting across.

For capturing a wounded leopard, officials in Dudhwa/Katarniaghat National

Tiger Reserve recently followed a drill borrowed straight from the caveman’s

manual. They used a couple of bamboo poles, some rope and lots of brute force to

overpower the big cat. If the animals die during such exercises, they blame it

on “sheer bad luck”.

A local activist from Bahraich, Jitendra Chaturvedi provided TOI with a CD

that shows the operation — “Catch a leopard”— carried out in village Anandnagar,

15 km off Katarniaghat Tiger Reserve. The 40-minute account shot on May 20,

2006, highlights the brutality and callousness shown by the forest guards while

handling the big cat, which was caught alive by locals.

The visuals show two forest guards pinning down the leopard, tied up by

villagers, by pressing a bamboo at its neck from both ends. This was meant to

immobilise the animal, whose hind legs were probably broken due to lathi blows

received earlier. The ordeal lasted a full 22 minutes.

Next, the guards tied the leopard’s legs and hauled it on the pole upside

down and dumped it on an open Jonga. The trauma obviously proved fatal for the

leopard, which died within two hours.

The incident would have been forgotten, but the next day, the forest

department named 24 villagers in the complaint filed at the Sujauli police

station. “The CD furnished the proof of their innocence and police decided not

to proceed against them,” says Chaturvedi.

“This leopard had been stalking residents of Anandnagar for more than three

months and had injured six people and attacked dozens of cattle. Repeated

complaints to forest officials did not help and when they did nothing to protect

the area, we decided to deal with it ourselves, says Lakshaman Prasad, a member

of the village team that captured the leopard.

On the 20th, spotting the leopard, villagers threw “khabarh” (a huge net made

of ropes) on it and hit its hind limbs. When it fell, it was tied down and the

ranger’s office was informed. “They came after four hours, and that too,

unprepared. They used material provided by villagers, Chaturvedi said.

Shocked at the incident, former director of Dudhwa National Park G C Mishra

said the guards should have used tranquillising guns, and that pinning the

animal down by a pole was absolutely inhuman. But then, the reserve has neither

such basic equipment nor trained manpower to operate them, he pointed out.

 

 

 

Instead of a tranquilising gun, forest officials use a stick to immobilise the

leopard. (Below) After overpowering the big cat, they tie it to a bamboo pole

upside down. The injured animal in the picture died soon after this brutal act.