ADILABAD: Residents of villages on the fringes of the forests in Boath, Bazarathnoor and Neeradigonda mandals in erstwhile Adilabad are these days too scared to step out of their homes at night after an unusual spike in the number of leopards in the area.
Forest officials studying the pug marks to calculate the actual number of leopards believe it to be between 20 and 25, but refuse to confirm the figure. District forest officer P Rajashekhar however did confirm that there has been an unusual spike in the number of leopards in Adilabad, Echoda and Utnoor forest divisions.
"The number is increasing as leopards don't generally migrate long distances like tigers. Their territory is much smaller and they don’t venture too far. In these three forest divisions, they are getting sufficient water and prey," the DFO said.
He confirmed that some of the leopards are hunting cattle. "However, we are compensating the cattle grazers for the cattle killed by the leopards," Rajashekhar said. However, the high number of leopards has scared away farmers and villagers from going about their day-to-day work, and driven away cattle grazers from the forest areas.
Villagers say that they are wary of venturing even to the periphery of the forest. Rajashekhar said that the forest officials have been organising meetings with the villagers to keep them informed about the movement of leopards.