Close on the heels of detection of a tusker carcass inside the reserve forest of Negipali in loisingha forest range which was buried and burnt in a hush-hush manner, the recovery of a decomposed leopard body in the district has put the forest officials on toes and shocked many animal lovers. According to sources, the putrefied body of male leopard was found near Jalmahadev inside the Gandhmardarn reserve forest on Thursday morning. After getting information, the forest official reached the spot and brought the body to Harishankar Inspection Bungalow where it was burnt, after postmortem by a local veterinary surgeons.
The leopard must have died more than 72hours ago.
It would be pertinent to mention here that the movement of a leopard was noticed more than a fortnight ago near Jalmahadev and it stayed near nullah for six hours.
The people had noticed some difficulty in walking of the leopard and suspected that it might have been injured. However, later its body was found.
This confirmed the suspicion that the leopard’s injuries became septic and spread all over the body. It is suspected that the leopard might have been injured by forest fire.
Gandhmardarn reserve forest area is frequently visited by the Maoists and so the forest officials do not carry out their surveillance workout of fear, said sources.