13 hours Ago By Aditi Shekar
Pune: Nearly a week after operations began to rescue an adult leopard from Pune airport (part of an IAF airbase), a fresh sighting over the weekend confirmed the big cat was still inside the perimeter, making use of an extensive tunnel network to move around. Throughout Saturday night, trap cameras caught the leopard exploring parts of the airport, seemingly unfazed by bright spotlights and the noise from airplanes. So far, there has been no impact on flight movements, officials from the forest department said on Sunday.
You Can Also Check: Pune AQI | Weather in Pune | Bank Holidays in Pune | Public Holidays in Pune The department said it was now reworking its capture strategy, and relocating all the camera traps and cages that were placed in the runway area to near the inlets and outlets of the airport's tunnel network. "We're hopeful this repositioning leads to his immediate capture," said Mangesh Tate, Assistant Conservator of Forests, Pune. "He is adapting to the lights and sounds of the airport.
This is a completely open area. At night, he's roaming in the open and uses the tunnels mainly during the morning hours," Tate said. Currently, 13 camera traps, four trap cages and four live-monitoring cameras have been set up to capture the leopard.
Their relocated spots were identified with some help from sniffer dogs, officials said. For a few days after he was first spotted on Monday — first in the morning and then at night — the leopard was not seen by people or cameras until Saturday night. Only old scat was found, officials said, adding they were also making plans to bait it for tranquilisation.
"The leopard has not been entering the trap cages. So we are trying to use as many tactics as possible, including tranquilisation. We have kept a bait nearby and once he is lured out, we will try hitting him with a dart.
We want to ensure this operation goes off smoothly," said one senior forest official. As for food, the leopard may be surviving on rats and stray dogs in the area. Last week, forest officials said they were surprised by the big cat's behaviour.
"He doesn't seem shy or disturbed by all the noise and is staying within the airport's boundary walls," one official had said, explaining why the department suspects the animal may have actually grown up near Lohegaon airport, in the adjoining forest area. There has also been speculation the leopard may have walked from Shirur, which is now a known hotspot for the big cats. Forest officials said later generations of these leopards have been known to be very comfortable around human activity, even with lights and noise from machinery.
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