CHANDIGARH: At least 11 leopards have been sighted using camera trap method during the ongoing leopard mapping exercise in Himachal Pradesh.
Addressing a workshop on ‘Living with Leopards’ in Shimla on Wednesday, Additional Chief Secretary of Forests Tarun Shridhar said leopard attacks showed a decline, barring in a few pockets in Shimla, Mandi and Hamirpur districts, where 219 cases of mauling were reported in the last seven years. In the last decade, state registered a total of 306 leopard attack cases.
Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh focused on the need to create awareness among people on leopard movement so that they could adopt a harmonious way of living by not disturbing the wild.
He also appealed to the media not to sensationalise reports of man-animal conflicts. The Chief Minister said his government encouraged landscape-level conservation approach for snow leopards. He also lauded the forest department for captive breeding of many endangered species, may it be western tragopan, cheer pheasant, snow leopard or himalayan monal.
He said there was a time when 95,000 fir trees were axed annually for making apple boxes. The government took a stringent stand, banned the use of wooden cartons and got them replaced by corrugated boxes, Virbhadra said.