The state forest department has set up cages and night vision cameras to monitor movements of leopards along the Sabarmati river. To house leopards that are caught, the department will also set up two new safari parks, near Vadodara and in the Gir East division.
Senior forest officials searched all of Sector 20 in Gandhinagar and found no traces of pugmarks, excreta or kills. A senior officer said they did find a nilgai with a calf in the bushes near where the leopard was sighted, which means there can’t be any leopard presence there.
A leopard was reportedly spotted by two sanitation workers about 100m from Akshardham in Gandhinagar on Wednesday morning, sparking panic in the area. This was the second sighting of the wild feline in the state capital in five days. On Friday night, a police constable working in the Sachivalaya reported seeing a leopard near Sanskruti Kunj, close to the ravines of the Sabarmati.
The department has already set up a safari park near Vadodara and another one is under construction in the Gir East division. Officials in the department said that the Vadodara safari park will be able to hold 32 leopards while the one in Gir East in Amreli district will house 62. The department had sent a proposal for neutering of leopard that are caught, but the National Board of Wildlife has replied in the negative. The department already has one facility housing leopards at Devaliya, Sakarbaug Zoo.
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