Pune: A fresh leopard sighting has been reported in Lohegaon 4-5 km from the highly sensitive Pune Air Force Station, from where another leopard was caught last Dec, after a seven-hour multi-agency operation.The latest sighting was first reported in the early hours of Aug 13 (Thursday), when residential CCTV showed the leopard hunting a stray dog in the Khandoba Mala area, a largely residential neighbourhood. Since then, the animal has been seen at least three times, officials said, at different locations of the same area.News of the sighting sparked panic among residents. “A leopard hunting a stray dog so close to us is indeed worrying,” said Lohegaon resident Akshay Khadve. “Many children and elderly live here. I hope we’re alerted of the animal’s movements,” he added.Officials said they’ve asked a local NGO to assist with the capture. “We verified the CCTV footage from Khandoba Mala and saw the animal had killed a stray dog. Volunteers from the NGO used drones to search for the animal, but couldn’t spot it,” said Nandkishor Patil, Pune range forest officer.He said the animal likely entered Lohegaon from nearby villages where sugarcane fields and water bodies provide suitable habitat and cover. But its exact route of entry into the residential zone has not yet been established.Officials from the Air Force station said vigilance has been heightened along their permeter line. Patil said it’s natural for big cats to enter the territory of another, once the animal that occupied it has been removed.“But we don’t know if that’s the case here,” he said, adding that all efforts have been made by IAF staff to prevent the leopard from entering the Air Force station campus.Lohegaon, Dhanori and Dighi — neighbourhoods that are now very close to forest pockets — have all reported leopard sightings in the past. These densely populated zones are also not too far from Dighi Hills as well as the sugarcane-growing belt of Haveli taluka.A senior forest official said availability of prey, especially stray dogs, was now motivating leopards to enter Pune’s urban fringes. “Rapid expansion around forest pockets that were earlier far from city limits is an emerging challenge. Stray dogs are an easy food source for leopards in urban areas. Sightings are sporadic, but this issue could become a major concern in the future,” the official said, adding a multi-pronged approach involving surveillance, stray dog management and public awareness was now needed to prevent such incidents from recurring.In Dec, it took the forest dept, IAF personnel and animal rescue specialists over seven hours to capture the leopard that for months kept appearing near critical areas of Pune airport, one of the few airports in the country that’s also home to a squadron of fighter jets.In one video in April, that leopard was seen mere metres from moving passenger jets, sparking alarm among IAF and airport officials, who said the animal was using the airport’s extensive tunnel network to move around the facility. It was finally tranquilised in Dec, eight months after it was first seen.
