For about 10 days in February, people residing along the Godavari coast spent sleepless nights owing to the fear of leopard attack. Agriculture works came to a standstill and people were scared of moving alone even during the day time.
A five-year-old leopard was first spotted by the residents of Ankampalem near Atreyapuram on February 4. the animal injured four labourers who reportedly tried to chase it. After taking shelter atop a coconut tree, the big cat made an escape in the early hours of the day. After 10 days, the animal re-appeared at Balusulanka village near Mummidivaram, where it injured three persons, before taking shelter in an abandoned hut. This time, the forest officials successfully trapped the leopard after tranquillising it. It was carted to the zoological park at Visakhapatnam.
"Though the injuries have healed, memories of the leopard are still fresh in our minds. It was a very active animal and healthy too. It might have entered our village in search of food," says Yadla Chitti Babu of Ankampalem, who suffered injury on his left shoulder in the leopard attack. "The leopard is still a hot topic in our village. We don’t think it came to our place in search of food, but in a bid to go to the forest," says Chikurumilli Nageswara Rao of Gedellanka, whom the leopard attacked before it was captured.
Though not frequent, leopards entering human habitations is not new to the residents of the Godavari districts. Over half a dozen incidents of leopard appearance were reported in the last decade, and the forest officials caught the animals on two occasions.
"Leopards can survive eating rats and dogs. They can even take eggs as
their meal. So, there is
no point in the argument that leopards enter human habitations in search of food," says Anant Shankar, Divisional Forest Officer, whose previous assignment was with a tiger reserve
in Maharashtra.
However, he observes that leopards prefer to travel from one place to another, and they can easily cover a distance of 200 km in a day. "The leopard might have entered the villages while wandering. We have reports about the presence of leopards in the islands amid the Godavari, where they are finding dogs and blackbuck as their prey," he says.
