Watch: Leopard locked inside Coimbatore godown stays away from traps, makes forest officials wait

On Sunday night, one of the workers, after spotting the leopard inside the godown, closed the main door and alerted the officials who have been monitoring the movements of the leopard for one month.

Conservator of forests S Ramasubramanian told indianexpress.com that they had secured the entire building and the animal would be caught by Thursday at the latest as the animal has been deprived of food or water for the past couple of days.

#TamilNadu Forest Department on Tuesday said it is hopeful of trapping the elusive leopard which was sighted in an abandoned godown at Kuniyuamuthur in #Coimbatore, as the CCTV footage revealed it moving towards one of the cages placed in the area. https://t.co/KLZ4iCJZNc pic.twitter.com/GGq4DXGa4i

— Express Chennai (@ie_chennai) January 19, 2022

“The abandoned godown was earlier used for the making of sanitary materials. There are around six rooms and two main entrances. We have placed cages on both entry and exit points. A net has been put above the roof to make sure the leopard does not escape. A dog has been kept as live bait to lure the leopard. It is kept in a separate compartment inside the cage to make sure it is not attacked by the leopard. Meat and water are also kept in the other cage,” he said.

Officials in the department said the leopard might have reached the spot through the adjoining Madukkarai forest range. They suspect that the animal might have been pushed to the boundary of the range due to a territorial fight with other leopards.

Ramasubramanian said the animal might have become cautious due to the noise from the nearby residential areas resulting in the delay of its capture.

“Yesterday night it came close to entering the cage but due to some hesitancy, it went back. We have deployed five CCTV cameras and are closely monitoring its movements. We have to deal with this calmly,” he added.