M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, Jan. 23: A two-member team of the Sanjay Dubri tiger reserve in Madhya Pradesh has reached Garhwa district after all the efforts of the Jharkhand Forest department assisted by man-animal conflict expert Nawab Shafath Ali Khan have failed to encage/kill man-eater leopard.
The team comprises assistant ranger Srinivas Sen and rescue handler Ravi Singh.
Range officer of Bastua range of the Sanjay Dubri tiger reserve Mahavir Pandey told Lagatar24.com over phone today that the team has got on to the job there. “They will be assessing the situation,” he added.
“Our men will first find out the look of the cage if it is jungle-friendly or it looks any outlandish as leopards are too shrewd to distinguish the jungle or the trap in it,” said Pandey.
“Smell of raw meat should emanate from the cage which should be totally camouflaged so as to attract the leopard inside the cage,” the ranger added.
Pandey went on to say, “We do keep bait in chicken, goat, feral dog etc in the cage. But the problem is whenever these baits find leopard around, their voices freeze and they become as silent as stone”.
There must be sound system attached to the cage so that the taped voice of the bait like chicken, dog etc is played out just to attract the leopard in to the cage.
The ranger also said that the artificial sound system is most indispensable as to how can a leopard know there is some eatable for it around.
He also pointed out that the positioning of the cages too matters most. “Positioning of the cages ought to be in commensurate with the jungles,” he added.
Apart from the status of the cages the Sanjay Dubri tiger reserve team members would also analyse the pug marks of the leopard.
Meanwhile, Regional Chief Conservator of Forest, Palamu, Kumar Ashutosh said, that the Sanjay Dubri tiger reserve team is taking a look at our cages. “We used to camouflage it as good as possible. I am told this team wants no iron rod /bar of the cage to be even slightly open as leopards notice it more than any one else,” he added.
Ashutosh said we had the taped voice of pig in the cage too. “We believe this Sanjay Dubri team here will assist us in getting this leopard,” he added.
Nawab Shafath Ali Khan reiterated that right from camouflaging the cages down to keeping of a bait like goat or raw meat of the goat inside the cage to the taped voice etc all efforts are on to draw this leopard in to the cage but it is bypassing it since long.
Nawab said the forest officers and personnel are trying to pull out a stop in the way of encaging the leopard.
Sanjay Dubri tiger reserve ranger Mahavir Pandey has repeatedly told this correspondent that drawing leopard in to the cage is no cake walk but a very patient and painstakingly endeavour which for days may go without any result.
The team that has come from Madhya Pradesh did get success in encaging leopard there after nearly 3 weeks of the tireless efforts.
Here too considerable time has gone without the leopard getting into the cage but the greatest consolation is that there is no human killing by it since December 28 in Garhwa district till Monday.
