13 November,2021 09:21 AM IST | Mumbai | Ranjeet Jadhav
Female leopard C33 had been kept at SGNP’s leopard rescue centre
More than a month after it was trapped in a cage at Aarey Milk Colony, a female leopard, identified by forest officials as C33, has been radio-collared and released back into the wild, said officials. The animal is a sibling of now-captured big cat C32 that was suspected to be behind a series of attacks on locals since August 31.
Sunil Limaye, principal chief conservator of forest-wildlife said, "Dr Bilal Habib's team from Wildlife Institute of India long with the support of SGNP [Sanjay Gandhi National Park] administration have successfully radio-collared the female leopard C33 after which it has been successfully released back into its natural habitat on Tuesday."
Limaye said members from Dr Vidya Athreya's team including researcher Nikit Surve and the staff from SGNP and Thane Forest Department (Territorial) are monitoring the movement of the collared animal 24/7.
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"Before releasing C33, a strategy and plan related to monitoring were prepared and for the next two weeks forest department teams and researchers would do intense monitoring to get details about the landscape it is using, how many hours it rests, when it gets active and starts moving, etc. The data that we will get through this exercise can be really helpful to decide further strategy and plan of action," added Limaye.
C33 was fitted with the tracking device in the presence of Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest Virendra Tiwari, Chief Conservator of Forest-Thane Forest Department (Territorial) S Ramrao and SGNP Field Director G Mallikarjun.
C33 had walked into a cage in the early hours of October 1. Forest officials had set up cages to trap its sibling C32 after nine local residents were injured in leopard attacks since August 31. C32 was trapped last week.
A researcher from WII along with Dr Shailesh Pethe, assistant commissioner (wildlife) at SGNP and Dr Nikhil Bangar, wildlife veterinary officer, Wildlife SOS fitted the radio collar on the two-year-old female leopard. It was released after 8 hours.
C33 apart, two other leopards were also trapped in the cages set up at Aarey. Authorities had released them without any delay.
