“It was a lucky day for us,” recalls SV Hari Shanker about his jungle safari at Nagarhole National Park in Kabini, Karnataka. Hari and his family had set out for the jeep ride in the evening.
“A few minutes into the ride, the naturalist who accompanied us pointed and we saw a majestic black animal, ambling on the road like a king. The ferocious face sent a chill down my spine. It was the rare and elusive melanistic leopard; the only one in the Kabini forest.”
- Coimbatore-based photographer R Prakash shot to fame when he photographed a rare pair — a melanistic and common leopard — in The Nilgiris.
- His photo won the third prize in the Royal Bank of Scotland-Sanctuary Asia Wildlife Photography Awards and appeared on the cover of a Sanctuary Asia issue. It was the most-commented picture on India Nature Watch, an online forum.
- “It’s the common leopard that gets the black coat because of a melanistic deficiency and that’s why it's so unique. You can see them in Mudumalai forest range and Kotagiri too,” says Prakash.
All other safari vehicles assembled immediately to catch a glimpse of the rare sighting. “It’s a shy animal and it ran away and hid in the nearby bush. But there was a road ahead leading into the core area of the forest. So we hoped to see the animal again.”
As they waited for another 30 minutes, the leopard emerged from the bush. It rolled on the road briefly and walked away into the wild. “It lasted only a few minutes but was an unforgettable experience. I have been tracking the wildlife sightings in the forest on the Wild Trial app. And, there was no mention of this rare animal. It was also a lucky day for a foreign tourist who had been extending his stay at Kabini for over a month just for this sighting.”
Melanistic leopard
Hari’s 10-year-old son who accompanied him shot a video of the sighting. “He was so excited to see the animal for the first time in the wild. When he shared the experience with his friends at school, they wanted to go on treks too. Such holidays are a great way to teach children lessons on conservation. Once they step out in the wild, they get to breathe pollution-free air, and watch wildlife, which rejuvenates them.” For Hari, an unusual sighting of the rarely sighted Nilgiris Marten, during one of his treks at Chinnakorai near Ooty, got him hooked to wildlife and Nature.
