In Kerala’s Palakkad district, a four-year-old leopard was found dead in a chicken coop on Sunday morning after becoming trapped in the cage while hunting the night before, according to forest officials.
Arun Zacharia, chief wildlife veterinary surgeon, claimed that the animal’s cause of death was ‘capture myopathy,’ a disease that is similar to heart attacks in humans.
The family of the Mannarcaud home’s owner, Philip, who goes by a single name, claimed that at around 2 am, they heard a disturbance and found a ‘big animal’ in the chicken coop.
‘It tried to pounce on me when I went to check and I locked the coop and fled to the house. In the morning, we found a leopard dead in the cage and three chickens were also missing. We informed the police and forest officials,’ he said.
According to forest officials, after eating chicken, the tiger found it difficult to leave the coop, severely injured itself, and experienced “capture myopathy.” They claimed that despite some minor injuries, the animal was generally in good health. After spending more than five hours in the coop, they claimed that it died around six in the morning.
Recently, there have been several wildlife incursions in the district of Palakkad. An elephant that caused trouble in the area for more than seven months was tranquillized and captured last week. Veterinarians later found 15 gun pellets inside the elephant’s body, which they named Dhoni after the village where it was captured. Two fatal animal attacks were reported in the state this month; on January 12 a farmer was killed by a tiger in Wayanad, in northern Kerala, and on January 25 an elephant attacked and killed a forest watcher in Idukki.
Idukki and Wayanad districts both experienced a high rate of wild animal attacks. The state government recently announced its decision to petition the Supreme Court for priority wild population control in light of the increase in animal attacks and deaths. Environmentalists and green activists objected to the suggestion made by the forest minister A K Saseendran that even the culling of tigers can be justified.
Post Your Comments