Leopard trapped at Bagrakote tea estate

Pinak Priya Bhattacharya, TNN | Mar 11, 2013, JALPAIGURI: A full-grown male leopard, which was on the prowl in the Bagrakote tea estate located at Oodlabari in Malbazar subdivision of Dooars, was caged on Sunday morning. 

The forest department had laid the trap in the Bagrakote tea estate following consistent reports of leopard sighting by the garden workers. On Sunday morning, when some garden workers were heading towards the local market, they found that the leopard was caged. Foresters later took it to Gorumara where it will be released after minor treatment. 

More than 85 leopards have been rescued from North Bengal over the last five years and in most of the cases the animals, covered as a co-predator under the tiger conservation programme, were rescued from tea gardens. 

The garden bushes provide natural cover for these animals which often treat the drains of the gardens as their hiding place, especially when the females are about to give birth to their cubs. The heap of leaves in the drains acts as natural cushion for the big cats. 

This is generally experienced every year during the winter when there is no tea production. 

This is also the time of the year when female leopards give birth to their cubs. 

In many cases, the presence of leopards in tea gardens results in man-animal conflict following which leopards often get killed. 

While living in the garden, leopards often lift goats, pigs and other small animals that the labourers and villagers keep as their livestock. This conflict results in the death of five to six leopards and one or two human beings, mostly children, every year.