The leopard, which is believed to have killed a seven-year-old girl in Vedkhal (Dharkot) under Yamkeshwar block in Pauri district on Monday, has been declared a man-eater by the State’s chief wildlife warden. This is the second incident of leopard killing children in Yamkeshwar block of the district within a span of few days. In the previous incident about a week ago, a leopard had killed a four-year-old child in the Amola village which is situated about four kilometres from Dharkot. The villagers are scared with the leopard being still at large. They said the big cat must be captured or killed at the earliest.
After the chief wildlife warden declared this big cat a man-eater, the Forest Department has deployed two authorised hunters in the area in question to kill the man-eater leopard.
Talking to The Pioneer, the lansdowne divisional forest officer, Nitish Mani Tripathi said that the latest victim of the leopard attack was a seven- year-old named Santoshi, daughter of Dev Singh, resident of Vedkhal village. “The big cat was declared a man- eater by the chief wildlife warden on Tuesday. Following this, two licensed hunters- Joy Hukel from Pauri and Mohammed Saffi from Najibabad in Uttar Pradesh have been deployed in the area where the girl was killed,” he informed.
The DFO further informed that the girl had been attacked by the big cat when she was returning home with her grandmother. Two sub divisional officers, one range officer and 12 forest department personnel have already been deployed in the area, added Tripathi.
Observers point out that though human-wildlife conflict is not a new phenomenon, the failure of the department to address the issue effectively so far has exacerbated the problem.