A post-mortem conducted on the leopard that died after having caught in a barbed fence on a private property at Vazhappuzha, near Kollengode, on Wednesday found internal bleeding as the cause of death.
The post-mortem was conducted on Thursday by a team of independent veterinary surgeons from the College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Mannuthy. It was supervised by a five-member committee formed as per the standard operating procedure stipulated by the National Tiger Conservation Authority.
The post-mortem found that the leopard died of a heart attack after several hours of internal bleeding. There were blood clots in the lungs and the heart.
The four-year-old leopard had caught its hip and hind legs in the barbed fence and suffered the trauma for about 10 hours, snarling excruciatingly, before it was rescued by a Forest department team. The rescue team tranquilised the leopard and caged her. However, she died within an hour.
A three-and-half year old male leopard had died in a similar manner at Kottupadam, near Mannarkkad, in January 2023. Another adult leopard had met with a tragic end on a rubber estate near Mangalam dam in September 2018.
Deaths of wild animals like leopards and elephants when they drift out of their forest habitat are not rare in the district. Several elephants have lost their lives through electrocution and leopards through barbed wire snares meant for wild boars.
