After a year of medical treatment & recovery, wildcat returns home

Nagpur: The longest residing “patient” at Nagpur’s Animal Welfare and Transit Centre was finally released in the wild today, after a year-long treatment and recovery process. It was on December 29 in 2020, that a male

wildcat

was admitted to the centre after meeting with an accident on NH-7, near Pench.

X-rays revealed that the wildcat suffered from a broken leg apart from other injuries from the accident. Dr Mayur Kate, veterinarian at the centre, then conducted a surgery in which a metal rod was fitted to allow the leg to heal naturally. Dr Syed Bilal Ali, Dr Ranche, assistant Siddhant More and Sameer Neware, who were part of the surgery, took special care that the wildcat starts the recovery process as soon as possible.

From this point onwards, the wildcat was kept in a smaller enclosure to limit its movement and aid the healing process. After a few months it started responding well to the surgery and another X-ray was done to check whether the bone had healed or not. Satisfied with the same, a minor surgery was conducted again to remove the rod.

Within a few days of this, the wildcat started showing massive progress and responded well to the line of treatment.

Then, forest officials were confident enough to shift the wildcat to a large enclosure and closely observed its movements. When it became clear with time that the wildcat was able to move freely without any hindrance, the doctors were convinced that the animal could survive in its natural habitat.

And so after a stay at the ‘hospital’ for one year and seven days, the wildcat was finally released on Saturday.

State wildlife advisory board member Kundan Hate said, “The wildcat was released in Ambazari today. Based on camera traps, we have evidence that wildcats do live in that area, that’s why he was released here. We are happy that after such a long treatment, we could finally send him back to his real home.”


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