Villagers on WhatsApp help trap ‘killer’ leopard

KALYAN: A male leopard, which had purportedly killed a 4-year-old girl from Kasara last month, was trapped on Sunday morning, about a fortnight after the trap had been laid. People living in hamlets around Tansa Wildlife Sanctuary located between Shahapur and Kasara in Thane district were relieved, as a wild cat has been on the prowl since nearly two months.
Forest officials said they will keep tabs for a few more days to ensure that the trapped cat is the one which had been on the prowl in and around these villages.
Efforts to trap the leopard had been going on since at least a fortnight with a slew of measures being deployed by a team of experts comprising forest officials from Sanjay Gandhi National Park, wildlife experts and the villagers.
Villagers here did not celebrate Diwali, and had even stopped sending their children out of the house after sundown.
For one, a WhatsApp group comprising villagers and members of the rescue team had been cobbled up to pass on information quickly if any villager were to spot the leopard.
Honorary Wildlife Warden Mayur Kamath, who played a key role in tracking the leopard, said that leopards are sharp-minded. “Trapping them is not easy. So, we had to become sharper,” said Kamath, adding that they relied on camera traps and studied the trail of its pugmarks for a while.
Assistant conservator of forests S P Chavan said they suspect that the trapped leopard is the one which killed the girl. “But we need to wait to confirm this.”