Young leopard rescued from open well in Pune district

In a gruelling four-hour-long operation, Wildlife SOS and the Maharashtra Forest Department rescued a young female leopard that had fallen into a 50-feet-deep open well in Otur village located in Pune district's Junnar division.

After a medical examination found the leopard to be fit, it was released back into the wild.

Open wells across Maharashtra continue to act as death traps for wild animals, particularly leopards.

For the third time this month, weeks after a leopard was rescued from a well in Narayanwadi and only days after a leopard was rescued from Belsari village, another leopard struggled for its life in a 50-feet-deep well in Otur village.

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To safely rescue the leopard, personnel from the Otur Range Forest Division called a Wildlife SOS team operating out of the Manikdoh Leopard Rescue Center for reinforcement.

A four-member rescue team from the NGO led by veterinary officer Dr Nikhil Bangar promptly arrived at the location with all the necessary equipment in hand.

The leopard was perched on a narrow cavity inside the well, and was seemingly petrified of the commotion caused by the large crowd that had gathered at the site. After implementing crowd control measures, the rescuers carefully lowered a trap cage into the well to safely extricate the leopard.

The leopard was taken into a nearby forest nursery where it was examined for any injuries.

Dr Nikhil Bangar, Wildlife Veterinary Officer, Wildlife SOS, said: “The leopard was a female, approximately 5 months old. The rescue operation was extremely risky and it took almost four hours.

Kartick Satyanarayan, CEO & Co-founder Wildlife SOS said: “Once an animal falls into these wells they can suffer an inhuman fate, dying from starvation, drowning or injuries. We can no longer ignore the danger that open wells pose to wildlife, specifically leopards that are a species protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act 1972.”

Caidhev Madhukar Kakde, Range Forest Officer, said: “The farmer who spotted the leopard contacted us out of concern for the animal and we immediately contacted Wildlife SOS for reinforcement. Otur village is a leopard prone area that has a few open wells.”

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