Three leopards found dead in Uttarakhand jungles

India achieved a landmark and is now the biggest hub for Tiger conservation. We observed the International Tigers day just a few days ago with the growth in the tiger population by 741 numbers. India is the home for 2967 tigers. Madhya Pradesh has maximum numbers of tigers followed by Karnataka and Uttarakhand.

In Uttarakhand, shockingly three leopards were found dead due to poisoning. This was confirmed after autopsy.

According to sources, just a day before three leopards was found dead in different locations in Pauri Garhwal and Haridwar district’s Lal Dhang area. All three carnivores were found dead in three different jungle divisions.

The dead bodies of these wild leopards had been sent for postmortem at the Zoo rescue centre and on the basis of the autopsy report, it was revealed that all of them had died of poisoning.

According to a news report, the forest department of Pauri Garhwal and Haridwar district have said that prima facie it seems to be a conspiracy of killing these leopards.

The entire forest and wildlife department is in a state of shock as never before back to back deaths of three leopards happened in the past and that too within the radius of a mere one-kilometre.

After acknowledging this information, the forest and wildlife officials of Lansdowne, Haridwar and Rajaji National Park and Tiger reserve hurriedly reached the spot. However, they could not reach any definite conclusion as to how these three deaths occurred in a sequence and that too due to poisoning.

All three leopards were in the age group of 4 to 8 years. As per sources, the forest and wildlife officials stationed at Zoo under Haridwar forest division received the news about the dead body of a leopard in the Haridwar districts Lal Dhang area on Thursday evening.

The range officer of the Zoo of Haridwar forest division Mukesh Kumar immediately rushed to the site to locate the dead leopard but due to pitch darkness could not find the body.

The forest division’s team again started the search the next day on Friday. After an extensive search operation, the team could finally figure out the leopard’s dead decomposed body.  The body was emanating a foul smell and was found on the backside of the Kali Mata Temple in Lal Dhaang area.

Prima facie it was revealed that the leopard died due to poisoning. Sensing something fishy and risky to the other wildlife behind the poisoning conspiracy, the forest department’s team minutely checked the jungle area.

The forest team was shocked to find another body of the leopard some distance away at the Rawasan Range of Rajaji Tiger Reserve Park. The forest officials of the concerned division took the dead body under their charge.

While the search was on, the team found one more dead leopard near the bank of Rawasan river in the Lal Dhaang range of Lansdowne forest division.

After being informed about these three back to back recovery of three dead bodies of these carnivorous animals in the Pauri and Haridwar district areas the DFO Akash Verma hurriedly reached the spots where all the three dead bodies were found. All the three dead leopards were found within a radius of one kilometre. Therefore the centre of investigation has been fixed at Lal Dhang forest range near Rawasan river.

The investigation in the matter has been expedited by the forest division in league with the police department of Haridwar.

It’s indeed a matter of immense worry that three endangered species of Uttarakhand leopards have been killed due to poisoning.

However, there had been a spike in the incidents of maneater leopard attacks in various parts of Uttarakhand with the majority of these carnivorous animals becoming man-eaters killing the local inhabitants every third day. In another shocking incident yesterday evening a maneater leopard attacked a woman in a jungle at Almora where the victim had gone to cut grass along with her friends. When the panicked girl created a noise the maneater threw the girl into a rivulet injuring her grievously on the head and other parts of her body. She was admitted to a local hospital.