HOSADURGA: A leopard and a peacock died after the leopard was electrocuted while trying to hunt the bird near Kabbinakere village in Kasaba Hobli of Hosadurga taluk on Sunday night. The incident occurred near a hillock along the road connecting Kabbinakere and Bhutanahalli villages.
A transformer for supplying power to a borewell and a drinking-water supply unit is installed at the site. The leopard climbed an electric pole to prey on the peacock, which was perched on the transformer. The leopard became entangled in a wire connected to the transformer and was electrocuted. The peacock was also killed in the attack, forest officials said.
Some farmers, who were heading to their fields on Monday morning, spotted the carcasses and alerted the forest department. Officials inspected the site and conducted postmortems on the carcasses and disposed them of in accordance with wildlife protection laws.
Locals alleged that wild animals are forced to move closer to human settlements in search of food because of the encroachment of forest and stone quarrying near wildlife habitats.