TN Forest Dept officials trap leopard after 5-day wait

Chennai, Jan 22: Tamil Nadu Forest Department officials on Saturday trapped a leopard from a warehouse at the B.P. Pudur area in Coimbatore after waiting for five days to capture the elusive animal.

On information received from the locals of the area, the Department had been waiting for the past five days keeping an electronic cage to trap the leopard but in vain.

The leopard, which did not harm anybody or attack any domestic animals, was spotted at the abandoned warehouse early Saturday morning.

Conservator of Forests, S. Balasubramanian, who led the operations, said that as soon as the animal fell into the trap, a team of veterinary doctors attached monitored its health and found it to be stable.

However, the animal had not taken food or water for the past five days and no external injuries were reported.

The leopard will be released into the forest on later in the day after getting permission from the Chief Wildlife Conservator of Tamil Nadu, Shekar Kumar Neeraj.

The Forest Department had set up two cages to felicitate the trapping of the leopard and its movements were monitored in the surrounding CCTV cameras.

Meanwhile, the fire and rescue personnel along with the police kept people away from reaching near the abandoned warehouse as soon as the leopard entered it five days ago.