With leopards considering the Forest Research Institute campus a safe haven, especially for a leopardess with cubs, sightings of the big cat have continued in the area. Recently, a leopard reportedly killed a dog at the terrace of a home in the Kaulagarh area on Monday night.
The Forest Department is now installing a camera trap and shifting the cage already placed in the FRI campus in the hopes of capturing a big cat being sighted inside the campus.
It is pertinent to mention here that with a population of more than 2,000 leopards facing odds resulting from increasing human population and decreasing prey base in the forests, the incidents of leopards entering human settlements and more serious cases of human-leopard conflict have been on the rise in Uttarakhand.
According to the Dehradun sub divisional officer Gulvir Singh, it appears as if the FRI campus is preferred by the big cats, especially female leopards with cubs due to fires and other factors being experienced in the Jhajra range. "We had talked with the FRI director and came to know that the institute has been keeping a record of leopard sightings on the campus. It appears as if the wooded area provides good shelter while access to water and food make the campus favourable for a leopard, especially one with cubs.
A cage was placed inside the campus earlier to trap the big cat being reportedly sighted inside the campus. We are now relocating this cage and installing a camera trap to capture this big cat and relocate it away from human habitation," he said.
It will be recalled that a leopardess was caught in a cage placed by the department in the FRI campus in November last year and relocated.