Partner in cage, leopardess stays put outside

02-04-2010
Partner in cage, leopardess stays put outside
Times of India
Print Edition

In a dramatic sequence of events after a leopard was entrapped, a leopardess, that had accompanied it, did not allow forest officials to get near the enclosure and tried to free its partner by banging its head against the cage in Adi village of Veraval taluka on Wednesday.

The incident occurred at 5 am when forest officials heard the growls from the cage they had placed for the leopard that had been frequenting the village for quite some days. "We had placed a live bait inside the cage. However, in the morning, instead of one leopard, we saw two. The one that was caged was a nine-feet-long male leopard, while the other. Which was growling outside, was a female most probably its partner," a forester said.

The female leopard was clawing and biting the bars in a desperate attempt to open the cage. Not finding any other way to shoo the beats away, an official came up with the idea of starting a tractor's engine towards it. Eventually, when the tractor roared to start and was made to run towards the cage, the female leopard got scared and fled from the spot towards the forest.

Forest officials did not dub this incident as a new phenomenon. "Big  cats trying to rescue their partners is not a new phenomenon. Many years ago, a lioness, which was later named Purnima, was caught after she started frequenting Sakkarbaug Zoo in Junagadh to meet a lion outside its cage," an official said.

Meanwhile in another incident, a leopard's carcass was fished out from a Well in a village near Khambha in Amreli district.

The incident was reported from Trakuda village, where the leopard was found drowned in the well in an orchard. The foresters said the leopard is believed to have fallen in the well two days ago.