Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Leopard trapped in Ghogha, dies

08-02-2010
Leopard trapped in Ghogha, dies
Times of India
Print Edition

A leopard was found dead atop a hill of Nana Khorana forest in Ghogha taluka of Bhavnagar on Saturday night after it got entangled in a snare, the forest department confirmed on Sunday.

"Upon inspecting the site, we found three snares, about six feet long, kept at different places. The big cat was trapped in one of the snares and dies of strangulation as its neck was in a copper wire, the kind used on motorcycle clutches, that had pierced in to its throat," said deputy forest officer(DFO) KS Randhawa.

The leopard was about six years old. It turned out to be the same beast that had killed 18 sheep in Shobhavad village of Talaja taluka last week.

The forest department learnt about the incident after villagers of  Nana Khokhara spotted the body of the big cat on Saturday evening. "As soon as we were told about the incident happened two days ago," another forest department official said.

The preliminary investigation revealed that the place where snares were setup was a grazing land. Sources in the department said it could be possible that the snares were placed by shepherds to ward off big cats. However, the possibility of poachers targeting lions was also not ruled out.

"We suspect the hands of locals in the incident, who may have tried to kill other wild animals like blue bulls and the leopard got trapped. Prima facie it appears culprits tried to hunt for a wild animal for its meat," the official told TOI.

Randhawa said, "Whether the snares were placed for lion hunting or poaching of some other small size animals will be known only after the culprits are nabbed." Meanwhile, the leopard's carcass was taken to Bhavnagar, where its post-mortem is scheduled on Monday. According to the forest department, there are six to seven leopards on the prowl in Nana Khokhara forest.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A leopard is killed by getting itself trapped in a 'fansala' fixed with a tree near Bhavnagar. As always, higher officers of forest department are trying to lessen the seriousness of the incident as if they are trying to save their skin. Statements are being made, without making thorough investigation of the incident, that the trap, in fact was not meant for the leopard (as if Govt has fixed different trapps for different animals) but was meant for small animals and the leopard get itself trapped by accident.

It seems that officer making this statement want to impress that traps for such small animals are permitted by law and if the leopard get itself trapped in such trap meant for small animal is the fault of the leopard and the forest department is not responsible to check or prevent fixing such traps and the culprits are not that seriously liable for the incident as they have no intention to trap the leopard but small animals only.

Irequest such officers and request you all to request him, please don't make such unwarranted, in-authenticate, baseless statments when the investigation is not over (here the investigation has not even started when such statements are being made) because it prejudice the investigation being made by lower officers.

The incident, in no way, can be considered as not a serious one and should be thoroughly investigated and the culprits should be bring to stictest legal action.

Possibilities can not be ruled out that there can be many more such traps 'meant for small animals' are lying fixed in the are where leopards and lions are roaming and are stupid enough to get themselves trapped in those traps by 'accidents'.

Jaydev

1:29 PM
Anonymous said...

Dear All;

I am completely agree with shri Dhadhal saheb. This is very disappointing that an IFS officer gives such a hopeless and baseless statement. (As this is not new for us)

hunting traps in the forest itself is alarming, traps are traps, whether it is for small animals or large animals like lion. This smaller traps may also encourage the hunters/poachers to lay some larger traps for other wildlife.

All what we do is, let us ask the responsible officials of the Forest Department that if they know that people are laying traps for smaller animals, why they did not took action? Are they waiting for some larger animal to be killed?

This accident is very serious as far as safety of wildlife in Gujarat is concern.

Let me know and suggest what and how we can start action!

Hope for the best,

Nishith

1:30 PM

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