A five-year-old male leopard was found dead on a lemon farm at Sarangal village near Gudiyatham on Friday.
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Vellore Forest Division officials said an autopsy revealed that starvation might be the cause of death and it found no traces of poison. The carcass bore no injuries. The animal might have strayed into human habitations from the neighbouring Koundinya wildlife sanctuary in Chittoor (Andhra Pradesh).
“The animal might have died at least 3-4 days ago because the carcass was highly decomposed. Poisoning was ruled out as there was no trace of food in the stomach,” Naga Sathish Gidijala, District Forest Officer (DFO) in charge, Vellore, told The Hindu.
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Officials said S. Venumurthy, 52, went to his farmland around 5.45 p.m. on Friday and found the carcass. He alerted the Pernambut forest range. A team of veterinarians, revenue officials and the police reached the spot around 8.30 p.m. and recovered the carcass for the preliminary post-mortem.
Under the norms laid down by the National Tiger Conservation Authority, post-mortem should be done only during the day. Hence, the autopsy was done by two assistant veterinary surgeons from Vellore on Saturday. Samples were sent to the taxonomy laboratory in Vellore. The report is expected in a few days.
Officials said the thickly wooded areas between the sanctuary and Jawadhu Hills — such as Pernambut, Gudiyatham, Natrampalli and the Mordhana dam — have a sizeable number of leopards, thanks to the presence of a large number of spotted deer. In April 2021, three members of a family, including two women, were attacked by a leopard that entered their home near Gudiyatham. The animal was caught and released at Sarangal.