PONDA: A male leopard died a painful death after hours of prolonged struggle to free itself from a cable snare laid for wild boar by poachers at Simepaine- Mangueshi on Tuesday morning.
The cruel incident happened just two meters away from the roadside at Mangueshi-Kundaim drawing hordes of onlookers to the area.
An official said that prima facie it appeared that the leopard must have got stuck into the snare after it crossed the road and was moving uphill. The big cat was unable to free itself from the nooze as it tightened around its neck while it made a futile bid to escape. But the time the officials had reached the spot, it had died.
Locals said that last year too, a leopard was killed after it was trapped death.
Meanwhile Forest Officials said they would probe into the death of the leopard. “We will conduct an inquiry and initiate strict action against poachers involved killing animals. The postmortem would be conducted on the carcass and the exact cause ofdeath and age of the animal will be ascertained,” said an official.
Meanwhile locals complained that incidents of installing snares to trap wild animals are common here and demanded action against poachers. The locals at Madkai and Kundaim blamed the authorities for turning a blind eye to the destruction of forests and hills for making way for human habitation which forced wild animals to forage for food in human settlements.
Vijesh Naik, a local urged the government to protect trees and hills from destruction while Prasad Naik from Madkai said that with the destruction of their natural habitat, wild life had no place of its own and were forced to move to the villagers to look out for food and prey.
“Three cows, a buffalo and a stray dog were killed by a leopard at Mardol recently,” added Naik.