Elusive leopard shot dead by forest officials in Bengaluru

Bengaluru: The leopard whose sighting scared the city was shot dead by forest officials on Wednesday, triggering outrage that it should have been rescued instead.

A team had been looking for the leopard, first captured on CCTV in the basement of an apartment on Kudlu Main Road. The footage had gone viral, and the authorities had advised citizens living in the area not to venture out at night.

The animal was finally tracked to Krishna Reddy Industrial Area on Wednesday. Sharpshooters in the forest department were brought in to tranquillise the animal, but the darts did not work, and the animal tried to break free from a snare. As it tried to escape, it scratched and inflicted minor injuries on three members of the team. 

Subhash K Malkhede, chief wildlife warden and principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife), Karnataka, told DH, that he had issued a verbal order to shoot the leopard on Wednesday, and it was put down soon after, between 2.30 and 2.45 pm.

Section 11 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, allows for the killing or wounding of any wild animal in defence, Malkhede said, amid contradictory statements from others involved in the operation about the sequence of events.

“We had no other option but to shoot it in the larger public interest. We are sad that after all our sincere efforts to rescue it for four days, we had to take this call,” he told DH.

A forest official told DH the leopard was shot around 2.40 pm, in the vicinity of a partly constructed building where the leopard had been sighted on Tuesday. “We used drone cameras to locate the leopard. An excavator was being used to clear the area when the leopard sprang out of the bushes and fell directly into the net held by the forest personnel,” he said.

A statement issued by the forest department said the animal had sought shelter in the partly built commercial building abandoned almost 10 years ago. “The leopard also loitered around other apartments in the vicinity,” it said.

The department’s Leopard Task Force (LTF) and tranquillisation experts had swung into action with prior permission from Malkhede to shoot the animal if it is a harm to the public. 

“When the officials tried to tranquilise and catch it with the snare, it attacked the officials, hence forest personnel opened fire, which accidentally touched the leopard,” its statement said. The leopard was taken to the Bannerghatta Biological Park veterinary hospital where it died, the statement added. 

Earlier on Wednesday, a team of forest personnel stationed at the building shot tranquiliser darts at the leopard, but that did not work. The leopard tried to break free after attacking veterinarian Dr Kiran, Leopard Task Force staffer Dhanaraj and wildlife rescuer Mahesh. They were given first aid and later moved to a nearby hospital. Their injuries are minor.

Joseph Hoover, wildlife activist, told DH, “It looked like amateurs at play. Although officials can shoot in self-defence, this leopard’s death could have been avoided.”

‘Act of murder’

A senior wildlife conservationist, who spoke to DH on condition of anonymity, termed the operation shoddy. “It is an act of murder,” he said. He alleged that the team of ‘so-called rescuers’ was untrained. “The tranquilliser dose should be proportional to the animal’s weight. Was a rough assessment of the animal’s weight done? No efforts were made to follow it when it was spotted early Wednesday. This looks like an operation gone wrong from the word go,” he said.