KOCHI: “Was it a wildcat or a leopard?” wondered the local people who spotted a wild animal on an isolated plot at Marithazham near Kanjiramattom on Monday night. Forest officers visited the area and traced the pugmark of an animal from the bank of a small pond. They said the animal is bigger than an ordinary wildcat but smaller than a leopard.
The police said they cannot confirm whether it was a wildcat or a leopard. “A search was carried out in the area but nothing was traced. The search was stopped by evening and the police personnel returned to the station,” said an officer at Mulanthuruthy police station
V V Baburaja, forest range officer, Kothamangalam said he was 99 per cent certain the animal was not a leopard. “The pugmark is not as big as that of a leopard. As the place where the wild animal was sighted was far from the forest, there is no possibility of leopard or a tiger roaming around. Our suspicion is, it would be a wildcat. Some of the villagers claimed poultry had gone missing from the houses nearby over the past several days. But if it was a leopard, bigger-sized domestic animals would have been its prey,” he said.
However, he asked villagers to be cautious and report any more sightings of the animal. “By claiming it to be a leopard, we will only spread panic among the villagers. Last month, in a similar incident at Kothamangalam, people first reported a leopard sighting, but in the end, it turned out to be a wildcat,” said Baburaja.
On Monday evening, a man named Sudhakaran had first sighted the animal. Police officers said the animal was seen on a plot close to a temple. The local residents believe, similar to an incident in Kannur a few months ago, the animal might have arrived on a goods train as the railway track is nearby and goods trains are often stationed here.
Meanwhile, a large number of people from Kanjiramattom and Mulanthuruthy arrived in the area after rumours of a tiger spotting spread. Police had a tough time controlling them.