JADENAHALLI: A day after a young leopard was trapped in an amusement park on the city outskirts, a palpable sense of fear hangs over the villages nearby and the villagers are scared to move out after dusk. “There were rumours about leopard sightings, but we ignored it. After Wednesday’s incident, we fear stepping out of our houses during the night,” says 72-year-old Chikka Rangaiah of Jadenahalli village which is just 1 km from Wonderla amusement park.
Chikka Rangaiah, who has lived all his life in Jadenahalli, says, “We assumed that there were no wild animals in the vicinity. I have seen rabbits and snakes, but not leopards. Though some of them claimed they had sighted leopards, we did not bother much. But Wednesday’s incident has scared us.”
There has been talk of sightings of wild animals in Jadenahalli, Timmappanahalli and Bannikuppe. Rajendra, a villager, blames miscreants who party inside eucalyptus groves. “They consume alcohol and carry non-vegetarian food into the grove. The smell draws leopards. The ground fire that occurs from time to time is caused by miscreants.”
Unaware of leopard’s entry, visitors enjoyed in water pool
While the leopard, which was trying to escape the fire, managed to find shelter inside Wonderla, visitors at the amusement park were clueless about the feline’s presence and continued to play in water pool, say employees.TNIE spoke to many employees about what happened on Wednesday. According to them, fires in the eucalyptus grove during summer are common, but this time the leopard got caught in it and to save itself, scaled the 8-9 feet compound and another 6-foot-high compound to get inside the Termite Train enclosure. Both have barbed wire fencing. As soon as employees noticed it, they managed to evacuate the visitors. The visitors were not informed about the leopard. “We evacuated them saying that there was some emergency situation. It was only after 4pm, visitors came to know about it. But by then, the situation was under control,” they said.
“We had set up barricades in the area, continued to play music to prevent the leopard from roaming. Unaware of the leopard, people enjoyed in the pool, which is 600m away from where leopard found shelter,” they added.
Rudresh H S, head of Wonderla Amusement Park, said they have an Emergency Response Team which took stock of the situation. Following to the incident, Rudresh said the management has decided to strengthen security. “We will increase the height of the compound by 2-3 feet and install Y-shaped barbed fencing which is used by defence authorities. The police, forest and locals are helpful and support us whenever there are such issues,” he added.