Leopard Takes Sleeping Dog on Camera in Mumbai!

[Grumpy]

Somehow I doubt that dog is a stray - it looks too plump and in too good condition.

[Vikram]

Somehow I doubt that dog is a stray - it looks too plump and in too good condition.

That's probably because it was taken care off by the guard/watchman. That is usually the case in India where a few strays/mongrels adopt a place or vice versa.


Best-
Vikram

[brihacharan]

> Its throwing caution to the winds -
> The realty mafia grab every available space even if they border jungle areas as in the case of Sanjay Gandhi National Park / IIT Campus / Aarey Milk colony in Mumbai, where they have encroached the leopard's natural habitat.
> Leopards are strong enough to carry a prey 1 1/2 times their weight & take it up a tree fork 20ft high!
> They are particularly fond of Dog meat - True they grab their prey by the trachea & asphyxiate them - their fangs remain in the grip till the prey is dead - hence no external bleeding.
> Stealth combined with speed are their chief weapons as captured in the CCTV - Very scary - Thank God it was not the sleeping watchman who was the unfortunate victim.
> Chances are that this Leopard may attack again later as it was, his dinner was easy picking
> Thanks Vikram for sharing this clip.
Briha

[Grumpy]

It`s good to know that people take care of stray dogs ..... although it does make you wonder how there got to be so many strays in the first place.

[TwoRivers]

... although it does make you wonder how there got to be so many strays in the first place.

You don't know how they do that?...They meet in a back alley, quickly fall in love, and ...BINGO, another litter on the way!

[Grumpy]

Damn ..... is that how it happens ?
I thought it was a much more complicated process involving little, fat cherub types, bows and arrows, storks and gooseberry bushes.

[bennedose]

It`s good to know that people take care of stray dogs ..... although it does make you wonder how there got to be so many strays in the first place.

There is an active lobby in Bangalore that opposes culling of strays. Every now and again some child is mauled by strays, but India is a dog eat dog country at some levels. There has been a long standing but unsuccessful program of catching strays, sterilizing them, inoculating them against rabies, snipping a small notch on the ear to indicate they have been inoculated and then be released where the were caught. Recently a man was caught and charged for poisoning strays. I am sure his case will be heard in the courts in the next 20 years.

In public parks people feed fish, birds, squirrels, monkeys, stray dogs and even ants.

Many people feed strays as a matter of routine. It is only in India that one can come up with the saying "Dhobi ka kutta, na ghar ka na ghat ka" which is the exact situation that prevails. For those who don't follow the sentence means "The washerman's dog neither belongs at home nor at the dhobi-ghat (place where clothes are washed)" and it is used metaphorically to describe something that is neither here nor there

[kalashnikovcult]

I have tried to spot these panthers a few years back when there were hot news about their kills.

[Grumpy]

There isn`t too much `culling` of stray dogs in the UK but, inevitably, some aren`t re-homed and are put down. For the last couple of years the RSPCA and other dog homes have been inundated with Staffordshire Bull Terriers.
Yeah .... tell me about people feeding wild animals - our back garden is visited just about every night by badgers, foxes and hedgehogs and during the day it`s a bird sanctuary. All to do with my wife buying peanuts, etc, by the 25 kg sack. The bloody badgers have dug some damn great holes ...... and even knocked holes through the panel fence to get into the neighbours garden.

[lionheartguru]

Whoa ! I had heard of leopard attacks in shanties and huts around the national park, but a plush apt in Mulund !!!

Thanks for sharing Vikram. Have a lot of friends in Mulund, will share it with them.

Regards
Moin.

I have seen such dogs shiver and shake by mere smell of a leopard at night unable to bark beyond a whimper (though safely inside the house) at our native place in Ratnagiri.

regs
A.

Contrary to what A. has seen, i have seen our Greyhound Pair and a full grown Rottweiler attack a "bibtya" (not exactly leopard but something similar) as if they were the hunter and the "bibtya" the hunted ! Maybe because we have trained them to be aggressive and attack because I have got our farm near the Bison Sanctuary.

Cheers !
Guru

[ckkalyan]

timmy wrote:
My understanding is that the nerves at the base of the housecat's canine teeth enable it to sense the joints between the vertebrae of a mouse's neck, to ensure that their bite severs the spinal cord in one chomp.

SCRUNCH! Really?! Wow Mind blowing! Thanks for sharing timmy!

[brihacharan]

Leopards at Large

Today’s Times of India (dt. 10th July 2013) supplement carried a coverage on Leopards (with photographs ) wandering freely in College Campuses, in Housing Complexes and even crossing roads in Mumbai!!!
It’s a phenomenon of recent occurrence say in the last 3 to 4 years. This is undoubtedly due to rampant de-forestation, encroachment into jungle areas bordering far flung suburbs by migrant labor who build shanties, land grabbing by realty developers / builders and poaching of game animals such as deer, rabbits & wild pigs which denies the Leopard of its prey for survival.
Leopards by nature cover a lot of territory in search of food and these shanty dwellers who venture into the jungles to relieve themselves during night fall easy prey. Incidentally most shanty dwellers also go into these jungles to collect firewood & become the unfortunate victims.
Another interesting feature is that a large number of stray / pariah dogs hang around these shanties and become another easy picking for these wily Leopards. BTW the howling by these dogs at night also gives away the location of the food source for the Leopards whose sense of hearing is very sharp.
Attempts by forest guards to tranquilize / trap them and let them loose in the jungles have not succeeded since these smart cats always find their way back. There was a suggestion to trap them and send them to zoos – but then it’s a form of cruelty to give them Life Imprisonment for such magnificent animals. One way would be to trap them & send them across to jungles in other states of the country where they are located far away from bustling cities or better still exchange them for exotic & less harmful species from other parts of the world.
On lighter vein consider this – “CAN A LEOPARD CHANGE ITS SPOTS”?
Well - Your guess is as good as mine!!!
Briha

[Moin.]

The Revenge of the Dogs !!

[essdee1972]

This incident was within 15 minutes walk from my place. From the larger cluster of buildings around the place where I stay, about 20-25 strays have been carried off in the past 5-6 months. We are sometimes woken up by the screams of attacked dogs, in cases where the leopard is not successful. And I mean screams, not yelps or anything. Chills you down to the marrow, literally!

The incident where a little girl out relieving herself was taken by a leopard happened could be seen from my bedroom window. Unfortunately, night vision binocs are illegal here, otherwise you could have seen the cats sneaking around from the terrace.

Hell, I have actually stopped walking the Rottie at night! Never know what lurks behind parked cars.....

I am sure many of you would have read Corbett's "Maneating Leopard of Rudraprayag". Just run through the second chapter - "Fear" - again to recap what a leopard can do. I read the book forst as a kid, and couldn't sleep well of nights after that second chapter! As another hunter (I forget who) said - if the leopard were as big as a lion, it would be 10 times more dangerous". The most intelligent of the big cats - and this is what we force to walk our streets!! Poor leopards! Poor dogs!

[fantumfan2003]

Friends, managed to go through this thread today and can't resist responding to each one of you. Please note, I am not being personal.

Vikram, Pretty amazed that this went up all the way to The Dailymail. Knowing that scrap of paper, one can only imagine how the story will be "handled"

Moin, The plush apartment is in very close proximity to the slums and national park you mentioned. So nothing surprising about it, once you understand the food chain and its associated problem of encroachment.

Brihaji, appalling to see the Times of India going down the drain with such stories. Some leopards were trapped and sent to other forest areas for release but four of them died enroute due to shock and stress including a pregnant female who miscarried in the cage.

SD, All those apartments in your area are the misdeeds of the local politicians and builders. I wonder how many occupants were told or cared about leopards in the vicinity before money changed hands.

So in a nutshell,

Why do you have leopard "attacks" and "spottings" on the borders of Borivali National park ?

1) illegal slums in and around the park.
2) No proper fence, demarcating the park. Budget allocated but no one knows where it went.
2) slums in and around forest = dirty area and people = piles of rubbish/garbage = food for stray dogs = leopard gets easy meal
3) towers/buildings in the area are perfect shelters for stray dogs. Don't we all love those pariah dogs and their litter ? hell even the watchman gets a buddy to share his duties at night...
4) slum dwellers go into the forest area for long calls. A squatted person/child appears prey to leopard (same eye level) and is hence "attacked"

This is a powerful cocktail of colluding FD officials, slum dwellers, their political god fathers and builders for which there is no "utara" (antidote)

So what can we do about this ? Well nothing actually....except see the leopard branded a maneater, trapped and then caged for life. There are more than 16 such "maneaters" undergoing "umar-kaid" in BNP alone.

This is another FUBAR situation for this city.

Want to end my rant with this Red Indian (I think) quote .....

When the Last Tree Is Cut Down, the Last Fish Eaten, and the Last Stream Poisoned, You Will Realize That You Cannot Eat Money

M.