Captured leopard escapes from BBP

The leopard, nicknamed Rishi, that was captured at the Vibgyor School near Whitefield on February 7 and was rehabilitated at the Bannerghatta Biological Park (BBP) Rescue Centre escaped from its new home early on Monday.

Rishi was housed temporarily in Cage T-2 “Kanchanganga”, the only empty cage next to the one where 15-year-old male tiger Kartik is kept.  Rishi needed immediate medical attention, food and water. 

Many theories are doing the rounds on how Rishi escaped from the cage.

 Preliminary probe indicates that there could have been a small gap between the holding house cage where the animal was kept and the squeeze cage from where it could have escaped before jumping the 25-feet high fence. 

Another explanation is that one of the animal keepers may not have closed the cage door properly and the leopard may have forced its way out, said a BBP official.
Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) Ravi Ralph, who rushed to the spot, said teams of forest and zoo officials have found pug marks of the leopard outside the crawl area.

The teams are searching as to which direction the leopard could have gone in the forest.

He said there was nothing to worry as the animal would survive in the wild. 

Can fend for itself“On looking at its condition on the day it was rescued, we had decided to house the animal in the zoo. Thought it has a missing canine and suffers from Glaucoma in the left eye, it could fend for itself as there are hare and deer in the forest.

Awareness programmes have already been conducted in schools and residential areas abutting the forest areas. 

More such programmes will follow. There is no need to panic, he added.

Holding houseThe Rescue Centre holding house where the leopard was resting is 8x10 feet, the squeeze area is 6x3 feet and the crawl area is spread across half an acre and it is shared by four animals. 

The whole Rescue Centre is spread across 20 hectares and houses 18 lions rescued from circuses, 20 rescued leopards, six safari lions and three safari tigers.

There are totally 17 rescue houses and each houses four carnivores.