Team Herald
CANACONA: It is common scene to see cattle and other domestic animals straying on the unfenced 7.4km Manohar Parrikar Seaside link in Canacona, but commuters were in for a surprise when an adult male wild boar made its presence felt on the elevated road at Ponsulem stretch on Thursday morning.
Unable to negotiate the nonstop fast moving traffic on all the four lanes, the bewildered beast was seen running from one side of the road to another for quite some time giving enough opportunity for the trigger happy shutterbugs to capture still as well as video images of the wild boar which were widely shared on various social media platforms in Canacona.
Canacona being home to Cotigao Wildlife Sanctuary has a quiet a number of wild animals and unable to find food as well as water in the wild, the straying of these wild animals into human settlements is not uncommon in the taluka.
In a similar instance, a male wild boar weighing over 100kg while crossing from Ponsulem to Patnem came across the recently inaugurated Manohar Parrikar Seaside Bypass link at about 10 am on Thursday.
Ganesh Dhuri, a resident of Mongan, who witnessed the distressed wild boar on the new Highway at Ponsulem said that since that was the peak hour of travel there was continues flow of heavy as well as light vehicles on both the sides of the four-lane highway.
“The wild Boar weighing more than 100kg was seen running from the Ponsulem side of the road and was trying to go towards Patnem but since the traffic was too much and it was not able to cross over, after 10 minutes when the traffic slowed down it made a dash to the other side only to disappear in the bushes in the nearby fields to the joy of everyone who had gathered to watch the rare scene,” Dhuri added.
Wild life enthusiast Satish Paiginkar said that there are many instances wherein wild animals like leopards, wild boars, Indian Civets, Mongoos, reptiles and other mammals are victims of road kills.
Animals are silent victims of road collisions. Expansion of roads and highways through forested areas is a threat to wildlife today. Paiguinkar stressed on the responsibility of the authorities to protect wildlife.
“The National Highway Authorities have to install signboards and construct corridors for safe movement of these animals on the NH66 from Polem to Balli,” Paiginkar suggested.
