It has been over a year of playing “Blink-and-you-miss-it” by a full-grown male leopard on the campus of National Thermal Power Corporation Ltd in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh.
The local forest department has been unable to trap it due to its "deceitful" nature and on Friday placed a big cage in the NTPC township to catch the animal which is believed to be not a permanent resident but only a visitor on the campus.
It took the NTPC months to convince the forest department to trap the leopard. Permission was granted by the Chief Wildlife Warden only when CCTV cameras in the dense forest-like vegetation on the vast campus captured four images of the leopard, that too after many repositioning of the cameras.
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The NTPC also gave money to the forest department for getting a big cage made and installed on its campus after a smaller cage failed to trap him.
Built around 1990, NTPC plant and township are spread over 25 acres with a large part of the campus consisting of very thick scrub jungles with woodland and swampy grassland patches. This area has been created to develop green stretches across its ash dump sites. Due to its nature and wildlife, the area is a potential habitat for leopard.