AROUND 10:35 am on a Tuesday in late January, a woman spotted a leopard sitting on the stairs of a two-storey building on the main street in Daman and hell broke loose. The family living upstairs runs a sweets shop on the ground floor. A forest department team reached the spot and began efforts to rescue the big cat.
The family members on the top floor were evacuated and the street was cordoned off. A forest guard fired a tranquiliser gun and the animal fell motionless. Believing it was unconscious, a forest guard went closer and the leopard pounced on him, grabbing his leg. While the forester was rescued, the team realised that they needed reinforcements. Forest department teams from Valsad, Surat and even Dahanu in Maharashtra, totalling nearly 25, had to be called in for help. After a 10-hour operation, the leopard was captured by 10:30 pm that day — only after two more tranquiliser shots were fired. The four-year old big cat, weighing 60 kg, was then taken to the Vasona Safari park in Silvassa.
This is not an isolated incident. Of late, there has been a rise in human-leopard conflicts in the state and experts attribute this to depleting prey base on account of increasing urbanisation.
The leopard population in Gujarat rose from 1,395 in 2016 to 2,274 in the census last held in 2023.
Dhanpuri rescue centre
In the 36 cages, 18 leopard cells lined parallel on each side in the Jambughoda forest — 23 are occupied. Of these, 17 are “man-eaters”, confined here for life. One of the leopards is Tilak, which “mauled” a man, the driver of an excavator, in Narmada district, leading to his death.
Another leopard, Bhavani, killed a 52-year-old woman in Chichina in Dang; Gauri’s victim was a child in a village in Valsad. There are also Ram, Raja, Rani and Bhim – one of the most aggressive of the lot and yet to come to terms with his life as an inmate. These are all leopards captured from sites where they killed humans and likely to remain in the rescue centre for the rest of their lives.
The latest one to arrive at the facility is a six-year-old male — named Arjun — who was rescued from Sagbara in Narmada district in June 2025 after it was involved in two back-to-back human attacks, including a fatal attack on a nine-year-old girl that caused public outrage in the area.
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Arjun was rescued after a gruelling operation involving 60 forest personnel and volunteers, 12 days after the search began for him. Then there is Parvati, who was pregnant when she was brought to the centre in 2024, after a fatal attack in the Wankal area of Surat district.
Parvati delivered three cubs in captivity in Jambughoda and mellowed down after motherhood. Unlike their mother, however, the sub-adult leopards — Ganesh, Kartikey and Ashok Sundari — have not seen the wild yet. Officials say that since they have grown in captivity, releasing them in the wild will anyway be challenging as they have “never learnt to hunt prey.”
This vast specialised 36-cell facility to house man-eater leopards, the centre in Dhanpuri of the Jambughoda forest range was set up in 2024 as part of the forest department’s action plan to handle the increasing human-leopard conflict cases in central and south Gujarat.
When the rescue centre first started, five leopards from the Pavagadh rescue centre were sent to Jambughoda. Thereafter man-eater leopards from Dahod-Panchmahal range, Bharuch, Surat and Dangs were transferred to the rescue centre. At present, along with five sub-adult leopards, the rescue centre has 23 big cats, nearly half of the total leopards in the rescue centres in the state.
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Dhanpuri is one of the two 36-cage leopard rescue centres in Gujarat. The other is located in Amreli, where a similar number of leopards involved in fatal human conflicts are serving ‘life sentences’. Apart from this, there are about 10 small rescue centres in the state, including one with 10 enclosures in Pavagadh under the Jambughoda range itself. According to the Forest Department, around 55 leopards in all are housed in multiple rescue centres in the state. These include some born in captivity to leopards brought in after fatal human conflicts or “repeated incidents of attacks”.
Names ‘for the record’
Naming the leopards is a tradition at the rescue centre. Jambughoda Range Forest Officer S V Raulji says, “Of course, these leopards had no names in the wild. But once they are in the centre, we thought of naming them for the ease of communication and record instead of just identifying them by the cell number. We chose common, local names that would allow the caretakers to be able to pronounce. Since they will be in the centre for almost all their lives, it is also some sense of identity now…”
The facility is under CCTV watch and the leopards also undergo scheduled de-worming every four months as well as veterinary checks when needed. (Express Photo by Bhupendra Rana)
Each of the 10×10 feet enclosure has an attached open backyard, where the leopards are let out for some part of the day, especially when human caretakers must enter the enclosure to disinfect, clean and leave the meal – around three kilograms of freshly procured meat for each of the big cats. The mechanism of letting out the leopard to the back of the enclosure is multi-layered for safety levers to ensure that the leopards are let out into the backyard and the rear grille firmly clasped shut before the caretakers enter through the main front grille gate into the enclosure. One mistake could prove fatal.
RFO Raulji says, “These are wild leopards and man-eaters… There is no way they will develop any bond with the caretakers in such a short span. Therefore, we have two personnel deployed to ensure that there is no mistake in operating the grille gates to ensure safety. The enclosures are cleaned every day and the meal is placed in containers… Sunday is the day of fasting.”
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The facility is under CCTV watch and the leopards also undergo scheduled de-worming every four months as well as veterinary checks when needed.
Officials say that most human-leopard conflicts occur when leopards are forced to adapt to lowered prey bases or stray close to human settlements where livestock and fowl are available to prey upon without effort. “The leopards do not usually attack humans by design but because they think of children and persons with smaller-built, especially women, as animal prey… Once they taste human blood, however, they are known to attack deliberately and therefore, those involved in fatal human attacks are removed from the wild and kept in captivity at the rescue centres as per the guidelines…,” Raulji says.
“These leopards will be housed in the rescue centre until a directive is issued to send them to a zoo or if we feel the need to shift some when the centre is at its full capacity. For now, they will remain here,” he adds.
Sanctuary plan
Following a directive from Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, the forest department, during a meeting of the State Wildlife Board earlier in February, a large-scale dedicated rescue centre or sanctuary for leopards is under consideration — to come up in South Gujarat or Saurashtra, where the population of leopards is high.
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Senior officials of the Gujarat forest department said that the possibility of shifting the rescued man-eaters into a controlled, high-security area in the wild would be explored once the sanctuary is set up.
A senior official told The Indian Express, “We cannot build larger rescue centres with enclosures as that would require permission from the National Zoo Authority. Therefore, the plan is to create a sanctuary area of nearly 10 hectares where the man-eaters can be contained. It will be a semblance of wildlife while also being cordoned off from human settlements as the sanctuary can be fenced to ensure that they do not escape. It would, however, require much planning and clearances to be set up for the long term.”
In south Gujarat’s cane fields, danger lurks
Surat and Navsari districts have two rescue centres where leopards who killed humans are caged – possibly for the rest of their lives. The state forest department has started working on a third leopard rescue centre in Dang district.
The forest department has opened a leopard rescue and transit centre at Khodamba village in Mandvi taluka of Surat district recently, in addition to one in Vansda National Park in the Navsari district. The Khodamba centre spans one hectare and can accommodate 10 leopards at a time. Each cage is 20 feet long and 25 feet wide, and the leopard’s daily movements are monitored by CCTVs. A veterinary doctor was appointed for regular medical checkup of the animals.
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Sources in the forest department said that Khodamba has two leopards — one was caught after it allegedly killed a 7-year-old boy from Mahal village in Dang district, on December 23, 2025 and the other was caught after an attack in Bharuch.
According to forest department sources, Surat district has the highest number of leopards in south Gujarat at 104, followed by Tapi (100), Dang (86), Navsari (52) and Valsad (29).
Surat Deputy Conservator of Forest Puneet Nayyar told The Indian Express, “The leopard population is growing due to its adaptive behaviour for survival. Mandvi taluka has 26 leopards, which is the highest in Surat district. Regular monitoring of the leopard (in the rescue centre ) is done through CCTV cameras, and if there is a change in its behaviour, such as reduced movement, we have it checked by a veterinary doctor. In addition, the caretaker ensures that food is delivered on time and that cleanliness standards are maintained. Apart from this, we have separate cages where leopards who are injured are brought to the centre, and once they are alright, they are released to a far place in the wild so that they cannot return.”
The leopard rescue centre at Vansda National Park, which has a capacity to keep four leopards, currently has two big cats. One involved in a human attack was brought from the Dharampur taluka in the Valsad district. The second leopard was caught from Daher village in Dang district for its alleged involvement in mauling a 4-year-old girl to death on January 29. The leopard was caught after a few days and brought to Vansda National Park, which spans around 24 square kilometres.
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Forest officials say that the leopard is not a territorial animal, but a long-range animal and has an adaptive behaviour, and for that, its survival rates are high.
DCF Nayyar said, “Due to the rise in the number of leopards, they travel long distances in search of food. Sugarcane is a major crop in South Gujarat, and the standing sugarcane crop provides a preferred hiding place. Here, they can easily get water and even hunt cattle and stray dogs.”
He added, “We have started a breeding centre for red jungle fowl at Mandvi to address the food issue for leopards, and another is coming up in the next couple of months at Songadh taluka in Tapi district. We have also installed around 100 water facilities for leopards in Surat district. The purpose of setting up both centres is to reduce human-animal conflicts.”
Sources in the forest department said that another leopard rescue centre is coming up in south Gujarat, in Dang district.
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Deforestation, survival instinct
Nawaz Dahiya, a leopard expert based in Navsari district, who has done doctoral research on the big cats, told The Indian Express, “For seven years I have been working on the subject of leopards in south Gujarat, covering six districts. The conflict stems from deforestation and habitat destruction. I have studied 780 GPS locations of the leopard sighted in South Gujarat. I compared the present data with the data of 1950. South Gujarat has 17,500 sq km of area, and earlier there were 12,000 sq km of continuous forest pattern area, which has now been reduced to 3,000 sq km.”
Dahiya says he recorded a total of 5,258 incidents of leopard attacks on livestock from 2009-2022 in south Gujarat alone.
About leopard attacks on humans, Dahiya said, “My study and observation say that the leopard is a sensitive animal. The young ones stay with their mother in the sugarcane fields; they get water easily, and the mother brings food from hunting in nearby areas. The leopard stays with its mother from birth until 2 to 2.5 years, and later goes out alone to search for prey and water. For 2 years, the animal may not see a human, and once it sighted a human, it either runs away or attacks, which may lead to the conflict.”
He said, “We have carried out research with forest department data and found that the leopards who are between 2 to 2.5 years of age tend to attack humans while those who are more than 3 years old up to 5 years old don’t attack humans. The sub-adult leopard goes into the fields and sees female labourers seated on the ground cutting the bushes and attacks from behind. The animal feels that object as another animal. Similarly, the reason behind leopards’ attack on minors is that they found the size of the minor short and felt it as safer prey. There are very few cases wherein the leopards attack humans who are in a standing position unless they harass the leopard.”
He added, “The leopard has strong adaptation power for survival. We have conducted a study on 350 leopard scats in a non-forest area to determine the leopard’s preferred food. We have found that pigs are the most likeable food for the leopard. The leopards prefer to live alone and peacefully in the dense forest rather than in human-dominated areas. The leopard is the only surviving animal left nowadays from big size animals like lion, tigers, which were earlier found in forest areas in South Gujarat.”
When the rescue centre first started, five leopards from the Pavagadh rescue centre were sent to Jambughoda. (Express Photo by Bhupendra Rana)
The facility is under CCTV watch and the leopards also undergo scheduled de-worming every four months as well as veterinary checks when needed. (Express Photo by Bhupendra Rana)
