A male leopard met with an agonising death after it was caught in a snare suspected to have been laid for wild boars by miscreants at Balekatte village in Periyapatna.
The leopard was around five years old and died on Thursday night, and its carcass was discovered on Friday morning.
It is a common practice to lay snares to prevent wild boars from entering agricultural fields, but there are incidents of other animals — mostly leopards — getting ensnared.
The leopard’s abdomen was caught in the snare and asphyxiated it. “There are indications that the leopard struggled to free itself, but the snare only tightened with movement, and squeezed the animal, resulting in internal poisoning and an agonising death,” said Umashankar, who conducted the post-mortem.
Stalking a prey
Miscreants had used an automobile brake cable as a snare, which was laid on the periphery of kharab land about 100 m from the Periyapatana reserve forests. The leopard is suspected to have strayed into human habitation stalking a prey.
