COIMBATORE: Fear gripped residents of Ooty after a leopard entered a house and killed a pet dog at Vestoda near the Tamilagam guest house on Friday. This happened a day after a tiger killed a cow on the abandoned HPF premises in the same locality.
The incident came to light when the house owner noticed his pet was missing and checked the CCTV recordings. The footage showed a leopard climbing up to the second floor of the two-storey house through the staircase in the early hours of Friday, jumping over the kennel placed on the way and lifting the pet dog.
Commenting on the matter, a forest official said they have requested the Ooty municipal authorities to clear the bushes inside the Tamilagam guest house which is close by to prevent wild animals from hiding there. “We can set up a camera trap only after the bushes are cleared as the house is located in a narrow space. Also, except the dog, no animal has been killed by the leopard in the area recently,” he added.
In another incident, Gudalur forest division officials fixed two camera traps at Kalikunnu in Sreemadurai village adjoining the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR) to track a leopard that killed a goat. “We have asked the house owner S Abdul to build a shed to prevent the leopard from attacking other goats and instructed the locals to avoid dumping garbage in open places,” said the official.
Meanwhile, Nilgiris forest officials set up ten more camera traps in the abandoned HPF area to monitor the tiger that killed a cow on Thursday. However, no tiger movement has been captured so far.
