On October 31, when the permission to conduct an operation to capture female leopard C32 lapsed, Mayur Kamath, honorary wildlife warden of Mumbai suburbs, knew they would have to hurry to get the approval extended. Permissions are usually granted for a month, according to the rule of the State Forest Department. It had been 33 days. A go-ahead had to come from the principal chief conservator of forest (PCCF) in Nagpur.  

Since August 31, nine people including a four-year-old boy had been injured in leopard attacks, while several others had claimed that a big cat had charged at them. C32 had begun displaying traits similar to a suspected ‘man-eater’ from 2017, and this was a development that had left Kamath and his team on tenterhooks. “It was a ticking time bomb. The animal had become extremely bold. There were pictures of her moving around in human settlements post sunrise and early sundown. Such behaviour is disastrous for the animal itself because [at those hours] there are people around.” According to the naturalist, if an animal has to survive in a human-dominated landscape like Goregaon’s Aarey Milk Colony, it needs to alter its biological timings such that it ventures out when humans are not around. “Most animals respect human boundaries and wait till it gets dark to move about. This reduces the possibility of human-animal conflict.”