A young male leopard was caught from the fringes of the Yamuna Biodiversity Park early on Saturday morning, the Delhi Forest Department said.
The animal is being relocated to Saharanpur. It is about 2.5 to 3 years in age, had been spotted in November, leading the Forest Department to set up traps to capture it, said Chief Wildlife Warden A.K. Shukla. The big cat had probably strayed from its family either from the Hastinapur Wildlife Sanctuary in Uttar Pradesh or the Kalesar National Park in Haryana and made its way to Delhi along the river, said Mr. Shukla.
“This is the first time that a big cat has been captured alive in Delhi.
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The leopard will be shifted to Delhi Zoo, where it will undergo a medical examination. If found healthy, it will be translocated to either Uttar Pradesh or Haryana,” said Mr.Shukla.
After setting up cameras and traps, the Forest Department found that the leopard had taken a Nilgai fawn as prey about 10 to 12 days ago, he said. Following its tracks, the wildlife experts were able to isolate the leopard’s location and coax it toward a cage with a goat as bait.
“We figured out that it would have an empty stomach so we used bait to capture it,” said Mr. Shukla.
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The leopard sighting had raised alarms for the Forest Department due to its proximity to habitation. Mr. Shukla said that due to “unauthorised cultivation on the riverbed and villages like Wazirabad in the vicinity” of the biodiversity park, the department was worried.
Though this was the first time that a leopard was caught alive in Delhi, Mr. Shukla said it wasn’t the first instance of a big cat straying into the Capital. Last year, he said, a female leopard and two young ones were spotted in Usmanpur.
“Apart from one, they got way. The one that was found had died due to snakebite,” said Mr.Shukla.
He added that another leopard had strayed into the Sainik Farms area of South Delhi in 2002, but it had died, probably due to an overdose of tranquilliser.