Indian Wildlife Authority met with a surprise when a notorious man eater was gunned down by the State Forest officials and local hunters recently in the State, as it was measured eight feet and seven inches long. The State Principal Secretary Forest & environment Mr. Tarun Kapoor confirmed that Leopard gunned down at Patta village in Bilaspur of Himachal Pradesh to be ascertained whether this wild cat was biggest among Indian Leopards.
He said that the State Wildlife Authority was now seeking assistance of wild life experts to verify the fact. The corpus of the wild cat to be preserved and the services of wildlife Institute of India sought to further explore the wildlife data about wild cats. The State Wildlife Authority recently deployed a team of its officers and along with local hunters had gunned it down in the forests on last Friday as the wild cat had spread the panic in the area as it turned man-eater.
The official said that when the hunted wild animal was measured for its age, height, length and body mass index, it left the wildlife team surprised that they not killed an ordinary wild cat, but it was among the longest. It turned out 8.7 ft from, 34 inches tall and 70.850 kg in weight, one of the longest big cats of its species as the wild life authority in the state claimed have measured 8.2 ft long wild cat so far.
It had killed one 46-year-old man and attacked a couple of others before it was shot down. earlier it was caught in a farmer’s trap and injured its left leg. It had started attacking humans as it was unable to chase prey. Once they get the confirmation, the officials will approach the Guinness Book of World Records for an official entry. The GPS based study of Leopard revealed that there are about 785 wild cats in the State. It mostly preys on the dogs, stray cattle however in forest fringes it sometime enters in human habitations and assaults humans.
