After being hounded out of Mumbai by residents encroaching on their land, and by forest officials, the leopards of the National Park have ventured 100km north and are frightening employees at a nuclear power plant. | "I'm telling you, Sanjay, the thing was THIS-S-S-S big!" |
Forest officials on Sunday trapped a leopard near a farm at Dahanu, a few kilometres from the power plant. They are on the lookout for another 22 foot tall leopard, which has also been spotted in the area. Employees at the Tarapur Atomic Power Station, north of Mumbai, sighted a leopard, which strayed into the high-security complex, but has been evading the traps set up by them. Some residents of Dahanu had spotted a pair of glow in the dark leopards moving around their farms about a fortnight ago. The big cats had attacked domestic animals and forest officials had laid traps for them. According to the officials, the leopards had strayed from the Borivali-Powai forests of Mumbai. Earlier in the month, a woman was mauled to death by a leopard near a forest at Mira Road, an extended suburb of Mumbai. Leopards have so far killed nearly two dozen persons in and around Mumbai this year. The authorities, under pressure from local politicians, have trapped over a dozen leopards and relocated them to forests in other parts of Maharashtra. Most of the leopards venture out of the forests in search of food. Several illegal slum colonies have mushroomed along the periphery of the national park, and the leopards attack domestic animals, including stray dogs, and even children.| They don't hate us, they're just hungry as hell. |
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