The maneating leopardess of F.R.I (Truth behind the story)

[prashantsingh]

Today morning as I woke up and checked my mail.
I saw a mail from Vikram.
I had been feeling a little low ever since we shot our last maneater (a couple of weeks ago) and his mail only added to my mysery.
The whole day I could not work and my mind kept wandering to the comments posted there.
"Murderer
Barbarians
Killers"
to name a few.
The mail pointed out to a particular photo on facebook in which Kr Sanjay Singh and My Team had hunted down a maneating leopard in the Forest Research Institute.
A 500 hectare campus spread out which houses the Forest Academy . Where all the Forest Officers in the country are trained.

An 18 year old girl speaking on her mobile standing behind her house (bunglow number 9) had been killed by a leopard.
This was the Directors Residence. The senior most officer in the Academy.

This story is not an attempt to clear my conscience.
I am afraid that you will find the enthusiasm missing in this story.
I have nothing to prove.
It is only an attempt to show the other side of the story.
The Shikari's side.
I will only discuss the facts here.
I leave the rest to you (the readers) to judge for yourself.

Vikram. May I request you to post the link of the Facebook page here.

[ckkalyan]

Is this the image you are talking about prashantsingh?

http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/uttara ... 54124.html


Hunters chalk out a strategy with a forest official to kill the leopard on the FRI premises on Sunday. Tribune photo: Vinod Pundir

Tribune News Service Dehradun, March 15

The Dehradun district forest authorities have declared as man eater the leopard that killed 17-year-old girl at the Forest Research Institute (FRI) yesterday.

The announcement comes after FRI employees and villagers living around the FRI staged a demonstration. The villagers ghearoed the Forest Department and the FRI officials seeking prompt action against the leopard.
Dehradun Sub Divisional Officer Gulvir Singh said the leopard had been declared man eater and a team of hunters led by Sanjay Singh from Moradabad had reached the FRI to kill it. The forest authorities are expecting the leopard to return to the FRI on Sunday night, thus providing them an opportunity to shoot it. Hunter Sanjay Singh had shot a man eater leopard at Fulsani village in the Premnagar area of Dehradun some time ago.

Meanwhile, the Dehradun forest authorities have given a cheque for Rs 1 lakh to the affected family and assured it of more assistance.

[Vikram]

Thank you, Prashant, for posting your explanation of the incident.

The OP skips or embellishes a few facts re the killing of the girl and the shooting of the leopard. This is the post made on Facebook.



But, this link was shared on Sanctuary Asia's Facebook Page where a lot of members got agitated and reacted strongly.

You can find those comments on this link.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/sanctua ... ment_reply

Members, while we may agree or disagree with the views expressed there, please keep your comments civil. Sanctuary Asia does stellar work in the field of wildlife conservation. Thank you.

Best-
Vikram

[spin_drift]

Guys,

Next time you come across such criticism post some pictures of the victims' half eaten corps in the reply and tell them that's why we had to shoot the animal.

[timmy]

Once the poor girl was killed, there is nothing one can say that will bring her back -- neither anger or mourning. It is a terrible thing.

Of course, there are those who don't wish for such a thing to happen again, and so action is taken. However, this apparently doesn't make some folks happy.

We admire you for your courage, Prashantji. There are many reasons and causes for many events in life, but you are one person with the courage to stand in the way of danger and keep others from experiencing the horrifying death of this poor girl.

Those who would speak against you are not worthy of my attention.

[prashantsingh]

But, this link was shared on Sanctuary Asia's Facebook Page where a lot of members got agitated and reacted strongly.
Members, while we may agree or disagree with the views expressed there, please keep your comments civil. Sanctuary Asia does stellar work in the field of wildlife conservation. Thank you
Best-
Vikram

Thank You Vikram.
Our operation was totally transparent. We had nothing to hide. This was Sanjay bhais 12th maneater and we wanted to keep our record clean. Everyone who saw the operation agreed that we had shot the right animal. This was the first time in the history of F.R.I. that a maneater had been created. Only one leopard was killed. In an area which had 3 resident leopards and one visiting male.

This was leopard land. Leopards had been living here much before humans came in. They had every right to roam free and flourish on this beautiful campus.

The controversy started because the maneater turned out to be pregnant. I am quite sure , if this animal had not been pregnant there would have been no issues. She had an almost full term pregnancy with three male cubs. No one knew about it including the shooters.
It was detected during the atopsy.

Here , I would like to point out that it is impossible to detect if a leopardess is pregnant or not with the naked eye.
Specially when one is sitting 50 yards away ,in the dark and the shot has to be taken within seconds.
The amount of body fat can make a healthy leopardess look pregnant and vice versa.
As a hunter I have always been averse to shooting females (my personal choice) for this perticular reason. You can imagine my plight once I came to know this maneater was pregnant.

Sanjay's team consisted of Samarjeet Singh and Thomas.
I had Zaheer and Sudhir Raghav (Corbett99) with me.
In the photograph posted by CK you have the estate manager. The rank of a Conservator explaining us the situation before the start of the hunt. He was a great help and showed us the area as well as the camera trap photographs of the different (resident) leopards.

Zaheer. May I request you to kindly post some snaps of the Institute as well as the place where the girl was finally dragged and killed.

May I repeat Vikrams request. Let us refrain from posting any comments on facebook. I shall do so myself when I am feeling a little better.

[Mark]

Here is a story from about 20 years ago here in the US:


For Concern, Orphans Run 2nd To Lion Cub
May 27, 1994|By New York Times News Service.

SAN FRANCISCO — Soon after a 40-year-old woman was killed by a mountain lion in the Sierra Nevada foothills last month, friends set up a trust fund for the woman's two children.And when state authorities tracked and killed the mountain lion a week later, a regional zoo began to collect money for the animal's cub.

In the weeks that followed, more money was donated to the 7-week-old cub than to the dead woman's two children. At the end of last week, when it was reported that the cub had received $21,000 while the children's trust fund had raised only $9,000, many residents of Placerville, near the site of the killing, expressed shock and complained about skewed priorities.

"It's hard for us to hear how the lion cub is getting more money," said Jill Baker, a spokeswoman for the Placerville U.S. Bank of California, where the children's trust fund has been set up. "We look at the kids-they don't even know what's happened to them-and we say, `Good heavens!' " Defenders of the donations to the cub pointed out that $15,000-nearly three-quarters of the contributions-is a pledge from the nonprofit organization of nearby Folsom City Zoo, which said the money would go to improve a zoo habitat to accommodate the cub.

Barbara Schoener, a marathon runner, was halfway through a seven-mile run in the Sierra foothills when the mountain lion attacked her from behind and crushed her skull. Schoener is the first person to be killed by a mountain lion in California since 1909, said Bill Clark of the California Department of Fish and Game. Her death became a topic on radio talk shows throughout California. Hunters blamed an overpopulation of mountain lions, which they said had been caused by a 1990 law restricting the hunting of the animals.

Environmentalists responded that the problem had been caused by the growth of suburbs. They argued that humans are encroaching on mountain lion territory and allowing the animals to become too accustomed to people.

The trust fund set up by Schoener's friends is intended to help her two children, Andrew, 8, and Anna, 5. Schoener's husband, Peter, works as a janitor at a local school, and Schoener was the main income earner in the family. The fund had reached $9,000 by last weekend.

But since the disparity between the funds was publicized, the children's fund has received an additional $3,000 in checks and cash.

Unfortunately, that is how the world turns sometimes and there is not much a person can do other than follow their own individual path.

[xl_target]

Prashant,
All of us know what the right thing to do is, where a confirmed man-eater is concerned. There is no rehabilitation.
You are a parent and if you had not done this, you would have felt the pain of the parents of the next child to be taken by the man eater.
No matter what those morons say, human life to us is much more precious than any man-eater's.

Not many people have the courage and the willingness to take on a man-eating big cat in its element, especially at night.
As far as the imbecilic comments about tranquilizing the man-eater go; I sure as hell wouldn't want to be the guy who shoots the dart into a man-eating big cat and then have to wait around the area while the drug takes effect.

My respect for your courage and your willingness to put your life at risk to take care of this problem is enormous.
You sir, have a tremendous amount of intestinal fortitude. You have giant big ones, sir, Giant!

Don't bother posting anything on that facebook post. It is not worth arguing with idiots. One just brings oneself down to their level.
It is not worth losing any sleep over either. You just have to balance the life of a little child against all that stupidity.

[Mark]

Very well put XL.

[AgentDoubleS]

Prashant, my respect to you and your conviction to do the right thing. I am sure the news of pregnancy of the leopardess must be heartbreaking. Hope you put that behind you and not let your future actions be clouded by it.

Regards,
SS

[prashantsingh]

Thank You friends for your support.

Some people on facebook said they had an issue with the Shooters posing proudly with the dead animal.
As a shooter.
We were given a job by the dept. There were other leopards in the area.
Yet we managed to shoot the right one.
In my eyes. That is the reward. That is something to be proud of.
We do not do this for fame, money or reward. We do it for the passion
Passion to save human lives
Passion to save innocent leopards from victimization.

SS . I have put that thing behind me.
As kids , we humans learn from our parents and ou teachers. Over time we get influenced by people around us.
The same goes for animals.
It is a recorded fact that a maneater mother teaches her cubs all the survival traits. If left unchecked. A maneater leopardess would teach her cubs the art of hunting and eating humans just like she would teach them the art of killing other game or the art of climbing trees.
So if we assume . All the three male cubs survived. We would soon have 4 maneaters instead of One.

Corbett has written a story on a maneating tigress whose cubs went on to become maneaters.

Sanjay has a recorded footage of shooting a maneater mother and leaving her sub adult male cub in Pokhal. Arjun, Zaheer and I have seen that footage.
A year later Sanjay had to go back to Pokhal and shoot the male cub who had turned to maneating.

Zaheer. May I request you to kindly post the F.R.I. snaps . So that I can continue with the story.

[essdee1972]

Prashantji, I have nothing to say except to repeat whatever other members have mentioned above.

Kudos to people like you who have the courage to go after a maneating big cat. Having seen situations where the residents in our building would call their families and 3-4 people would go down to escort one person from the parking to the lift, I can vouch for the terror created by one human kill, in an urban situation. One can very well extrapolate the terror in a forested, relatively pristine area like FRI. And when people go out into the leopard's territory to bring it down, some of us can understand the
amount of courage it takes.

And as for those comments, I believe that social media is a means to let morons exhibit their lack of IQ to the world. Put these people in a forest at night, a forest where there are no wildlife apart from mice, I can guarantee you'll have a full load of laundry in the morning. And I would like to repeat the words of the great Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. Once a friend reported that someone had been badmouthing him (Vidyasagar). To which Vidyasagar replied, "why? I don't remember doing him any favour."

You are doing people a huge favour, Prashantji and team, and it is natural that people who do not have the ability or willingness to do the same will badmouth you guys! Keep up the good work, sirs! You have a lot of supporters on this forum.

And don't play chess with pigeons!!

[dr.jayakumar]

If the maneater had killed 2 more people the same media would have asked for the inevitable.they haven't fore seen what if the leapord was at loose after tranqualizing and relocating.
regards
dr.jk

[zaheer.bakshi]

These are the photos where the leopardess attacked the girl and dragged her from her house. This is bungalow # 9 compound.



photo below - The leopard dragged the girl where the two woman are standing from the house adjacent where a single woman is standing.


The photo of the house where the girl lived.


MACHAAN UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Corbett99, Myself & Panditji...Testing the machaan.

[Kamleshwar]

Dr Prashant,
In my opinion you and your team has efficiently accomplished the objective given to you. You have saved the locality and the community from living in constant fear and virtual curfew.
The people who are criticising you may not have seen a tiger, leopard or bear apart from on a tv
screen leave alone living in an area where these animal live. Being belonging to Tehri Garhwal,my village is across theTehri Dam lake, I had ample opportunities during my childhood to watch these animals. They inspire awe but generally do no harm human beings. I also remember once when a leopard had turned man eater in 1968 or 1969. It had imposed a curfew. Children had stopped going to school as houses are scattered. Then this leopard killed a bullock and local shikaris sat over the bullock and shot it preventing further loss of life human or domestic animal.
Any human having a realistc knowledge could only appreciate what you have achieved at such a short notice
With best wishes,

Kamleshwar Raturi