60-day-old leopard reunited with mother in 5th attempt

After four unsuccessful attempts, a team of the Maharashtra Forest Department and Wildlife SOS managed to reunite a lost leopard cub with its mother in Junnar in Pune district of Maharashtra.

Earlier this month, a 60-day-old leopard cub was stranded in a sugarcane field in Dumbarwadi village located in Otur range, Maharashtra.

Farmers first spotted the leopard cub as they were harvesting sugarcane in Dumbarwadi Village in Otur range.

Trained in the protocol for finding stranded leopard cubs, the farmers immediately called the MFD who contacted the Wildlife SOS team operating out of the Manikdoh Leopard Rescue Center for reinforcements.

Wildlife SOS vet Dr Nikhil Bangar conducted an on-site medical examination that identified the leopard cub as a female of approximately 60-days old. The cub was found to be in good health and thus a reunion was attempted during nightfall, a time when leopards are most active.

“In most reunions, the cub has to be reunited with the mother as soon as possible, with the first three days being the most critical time frame. However, the reunion took a challenging turn in this case," said Dr Bangar.

The team had already made four attempts to reunite the cub with its mother.

The leopardess had also been captured on the camera traps multiple times, but she was hesitant to pick up the cub.

On the fifth day, the mother finally gathered some courage to gently tipped the box and relocated her cub to the wild.

Kartick Satyanarayan, Co-founder and CEO of Wildlife SOS, said: “Expanding sugarcane cultivation in Maharashtra is rapidly encroaching upon the leopard’s habitat. Thus it is becoming increasingly common for farmers to come across leopard cubs in their fields.