MF AHMAD
Daltonganj, Feb 2: The search for the ‘man-eating’ leopard of Garhwa has come to a halt as the big cat has gone unsighted for more than a week.
Notably, the man-animal conflict expert Nawab Shafath Ali Khan and his team have also returned back to Hyderabad and so is the two-member team from the Sanjay Dubri Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh.
The conservator of forest in Garhwa Dileep Kumar Yadav conceded, “We have no clue about this leopard. It is remaining unsighted for the last week or so. There is even no report of its pug marks.”
When asked if the leopard has met with any mishap or has become a victim of people’s anger to which Yadav said, “Our men have been spread out. I can only say this leopard is not being sighted for the last week or so. Nothing beyond this.”
Lagatar24.com correspondent spoke to the ranger of Bastua of the Sanjay Dubri Tiger Reserve in MP Mahavir Pandey last night to know what his two-member team which remained in Garhwa for a week or so had felt or experienced here in the jungles.
“Our team in the Garhwa jungles was impressed with the way people were made to be aware of the dangers and risks of the menacing leopard. Everyone there knew about the leopard and knew about the dangers of coming out alone and unguarded in the evening and night. Very good campaigning for awareness was done,” said the Bastua range officer.
“It (Jungle) is stony and rocky at most places and where there is rock, pug marks are just impossible to be discovered,” he added.
When asked about the forest beat management in Garhwa, he said, “The beat here is very large and in that proportion human resources fall short.”
“Villages here dot much in the jungles. There is hardly any patch where human footfall is not there. In that comparison, there is no prey base,” reminded the ranger.
A similar opinion was of the man-animal conflict expert Nawab Shafath Ali Khan who had told that the prey base in the jungles of Garhwa district is very poor and this may be the reason for leopards attacking soft targets like small kids here.
Nawab said the leopard must have chosen to move out of the jungles of Garhwa district because of extreme containment of it like night-long patrolling, setting up of automatic cages, and camera traps and big of all people’s tremendous sense of safety from the leopard.
When asked about how he sees his mission Garhwa, Nawab said, “I believe it is successful since it is now five weeks and there is no human killing by the leopard and if it chooses to kill goats etc, I think one should not mind it any much.”
Sources reminded that the office order of the principal chief conservator of forests and chief wildlife warden Jharkhand Shashikar Samanta in regard to hunting this leopard in ‘good faith’ and ‘strictly in defence of themselves or of another person’ was valid only till January 31.
Sources said it was the patience of all specially of the state chief wildlife warden Jharkhand Shashikar Samanta who managed to the pressure adroitly as there was one section of people who wanted this leopard to be bumped off.
Moreover, another section was ready with the banner of revolt and protest against state wildlife management for committing excesses to the leopard if it was killed or hunted and caught between the two were the three families which had lost their one child each to this leopard.
