The black panther in Dibrugarh on Saturday.Dibrugarh, Dec. 6 : A full-grown male black panther was captured today by officials from the forest department with assistance from the management of the Maijan tea estate on the outskirts of this Upper Assam town today.
The divisional forest officer of Dibrugarh forest division, Anurag Singh, said the big cat was captured with the help of a trap set up in the tea estate.
“We had reports of the panther creating trouble in the garden for quite some time now. Only on Friday it had injured a garden worker who is in hospital now, besides the panther had also killed a few heads of cattle reared by the workers of the garden and villagers,” Singh said.
The black panther is an endangered species and is very rarely sighted in the jungles of Upper Assam these days. It belongs to the leopard family and is a Schedule I species, protected under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
According to environmentalists, the number of black panthers, considered smarter and more agile than leopards, has gone down considerably in the forests of the state because of massive destruction of ecology and depleting green cover.
“Because of continuous depletion in the green cover, these black panthers have almost become extinct. Therefore, the capture of the black panther is good news for environmentalists and nature lovers,” Nakul Khound, the co-ordinator of IRAB-KIRAB, an environment NGO, said.
An official of the tea estate said the panther had been creating trouble for quite some time along with some other leopards.
“The presence of the leopards and the panther in the tea estate created a lot of trouble, cattle of our workers and even dogs are being hunted by these leopards and the panther. Therefore, we requested the forest department to do something after which the cage was set up,” the official said.
On December 29 last year, another full-grown male black panther was captured by the forest department officials from Ethelwood tea estate, another adjacent tea garden. The animal was later released in the Joypur reserve forest in Dibrugarh district.
The forest department had planned to release the black panther, captured today, after a medical examination in the same reserve forest later this afternoon.
However, it could not be released as planned since it had suffered some minor injuries during the capture.
After examining the animal in Dibrugarh, the veterinary surgeon from Wildlife Trust of India, Abhijit Bhawal, said it would be better if the animal was given a few days’ time for the bruises, which it sustained after it got trapped in the cage, to heal.
“Although the panther is totally fit and healthy, it will be better if it is released on Monday or the day after, so that the wounds are healed,” Bhawal said.
The range officer of Dibrugarh forest range, Jiten Bora, said there was a possibility of more black panthers in the tea gardens and nearby bushes in the tea estates of Upper Assam.
“Since December last year, we have been able to capture eight leopards, mostly from the tea garden areas. Two black panthers have been caught, including the one captured today. We do hope that this is a good achievement in terms of conservation,” Bora said.
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