A full-grown leopard was caged on Friday at Lahowal’s Dikom tea estate in Upper Assam’s Dibrugarh district.
Sources said the leopard had been roaming in the Dikom tea estate for the last couple of days and the residents of the tea estate are having sleepless nights.
The leopard on Thursday night walked into the trap that was laid by the forest department officials.
“We laid the trap for the animal which had been roaming in the tea estate for the last few days,” Dibrugarh forest ranger Nareswar Das told Northeast Now.
“The tea garden workers complained us about the straying of the animal. We later laid the trap and last night the animal was caged. We released the leopard at Dehing Patkai reserve forest,” he added.
However, man-animal conflict has been on the rise in the tea garden area of Upper Assam with animals like leopard often straying into human habitation in search of food.
“We are informed by the tea garden labourers about the caged full-grown leopard and we sent our team immediately to the tea garden for rescuing the animal,” Das informed.
He said, “Community participation is necessary to tackle man-animal conflict.”
Recently, a big cat sneaked into the residence of one Mahtab Ahmed in the busy Paltan Bazar area of Dibrugarh town.
Also read: Assam: Leopard hurts 1 in Dibrugarh, tranquilized after 8 hours
The leopard which took shelter in the kitchen of the house attacked one Ammamuddin Ahmed.
Later the leopard was tranquilised and released in the Dehing Patkai reserve forest.