It’s leopard cub season in Pune sugarcane fields

Nagpur: A pair of 45-day-old

leopard

cubs were found in a sugarcane field in Ozar village in the

Junnar

division of Pune district. The

cubs

were successfully reunited with their mother by Wildlife SOS & the forest department.

The Junnar-based NGO Wildlife SOS and the Maharashtra forest department have had quite an action-packed month. It is cub season for leopards and in the latest incident, farmers at Ozar discovered a pair of baby leopards while harvesting sugarcane crops on Thursday.

Identified as males, the cubs were estimated to be about 45 days. Wildlife SOS veterinarian Dr Nikhil Bangar conducted a meticulous examination for ticks and injuries and found the cubs to be healthy and fit for release.

The team arranged for the young leopards to be returned to the field so that the mother could find her cubs. Two remote-controlled camera traps were installed in the field to document the reunion process, while the team monitored the area from a safe distance.

Dr Bangar said, “The mother must have been searching for her cubs, as it only took 20 minutes for her to find them. We can only imagine her relief on finding them safe and sound! Such reunions are of great importance as they curb conflict situations. If female leopards are unable to locate their cubs, it is natural for them to turn defensive or aggressive and they pose an immediate threat to humans in close proximity.”

Kartick Satyanarayan, co-founder and CEO of Wildlife SOS, said, “To survive in the wild and learn the skills of survival, it is crucial for leopard cubs to be reared by their mothers for the first two years of their lives. To date, Wildlife SOS has assisted the forest department in successfully reuniting over 80 cubs that were lost, injured, or separated from their mothers.”

Forester Manisha Kale said, “Over the years, we’ve noticed a positive change in the mindset of the local community. Awareness programs have played a key role in sensitizing them to issues of human-leopard conflict so instead of taking matters into their own hands, more and more people are reaching out to us for help when they encounter leopards in the area.”

Wildlife SOS (WSOS) is a non-profit charity established in 1998 with the primary objective of rescuing and rehabilitating wildlife in distress across India.