When A Leopard Comes Visiting…

After breakfast, upon checking my WhatsApp messages, I found an advisory from Pramod, my neighbour:

“Please don’t go to Eco Park for a few days.”

He had forwarded the following photograph:

(A leopard reportedly sighted recently at Ecological Park, Bhopal)

We have been going to the City Forest for our daily morning walk for the last three months or so. While Sanjukta walks on the gravelled path preferred by ladies and senior citizens, I prefer the forlorn, uneven track running past the little pond, where I stop for a while to quietly click a few photographs of the water birds—Egrets, Stilts, Waterhens, Kingfishers and an occasional Little Cormorant.

We reach the Park around 6.00 AM, a little before sunrise, and spend about an hour there.

A month ago, we had spotted a Golden Jackal, rather close to the unmetalled road leading to Amrawat Khurd and Khajuri villages.

Link for my previous blog on the Golden Jackal:

https://www.pkdash.in/2026/08/a-fable-and-journal-home-schooling-by.html

This morning, it was my lucky day again. I spotted another Jackal, not far from the entry gate, sprinting away into the undergrowth. Maybe it had gone scavenging for food in the garbage dumps of Katara Hills colony.

Before sharing the photograph of the leopard with Sanjukta—why scare her, and give her another excuse to cancel the morning walk?—I thought it prudent to check the authenticity of the message.

“Has a leopard been sighted recently at Eco Park?” I messaged Lokpriya Bharati, DFO.

“Staff has been alerted,” was his brief, cryptic reply.

I sought guidance from Suhas Kumar, former PCCF & Chief Wildlife Warden, MP:

“Good morning. My neighbour has shared this photo and has advised me not to go to Eco Park, Laharpur for a few days. Do you think the advisory should be taken seriously?”

He replied by forwarding a message he had posted in his colony group:

“उम्मीद है इस बेचारे को अन्यथा परेशान नहीं किया जायेगा। लहारपुर ईकोपार्क का जंगल रायसेन के जंगल से जुड़ा है। कई वर्षों से तेंदुए वहाँ से ईकोपार्क आते जाते रहते हैं। किसी का कोई नुकसान नहीं करते। यदि इन्हें तंग किया जाता है तभी ये अग्रेसिव होते हैं। इन्हें शांति से जीने दिया जाये। इनके पुश्तैनी घरों पर इंसानों ने कब्जा जमा लिया है और आगे भी इनके घर उजाड़े जाते रहेंगे।

Darne ki koi jaroorat nahi hai. Ye yahan aate jaate rahte hain. Inki upsthiti ke bare me main 2017 se janta hoon. Panic failane kaam log na karen, yahi prarthna hai. Yadi log ise tang karenge, pathhar aadi fenkenge ya pas jaane ki koshish karenge to yah self-defence me attack kar sakta hai.

Agar ise yahan se van vibhag ne hata bhi diya to dusre tenduey aate rahenge.

I have written to APCCF, Wildlife to ensure that the leopard is not harassed or captured.”

I found myself in complete agreement with him, and thanked him for writing to the APCCF.

I remembered the python which Late Mr. S. D. Pateria had rescued in front of our home in 2015. It had taken less than fifteen minutes for a flash mob to gather and indulge in a bizarre selfie festival, some of them poking the reptile until it hissed and opened its jaws, protesting the harassment.

(The rescued python from Laharpur recuperating at Van Vihar, Bhopal)

Link for my previous blog on the python:

https://www.pkdash.in/2022/11/a-puzzled-python.html

More recently, following a complaint by residents of Nishatpura, the Forest Department had trapped five Golden Jackals. The next day’s newspaper carried a brief report congratulating the prompt action for capturing the wild animals that were reportedly terrorising the residents.

The report made me wonder: how had a few jackals terrorised the residents? Had there been any attack? Had poultry or pet dogs been lifted? Or was their mere presence enough to turn them into “terrorising wild animals”?

Isn’t Nishatpura in outer Bhopal and very close to a dense forest?

Who is terrorising and persecuting whom—the humans or the wild animals?

Eco Park is a small, truncated part of a much larger forest landscape of Raisen district, fragmented when the eastern bypass from 11 Miles Point towards Indore Road was built a few years ago to carry heavy traffic. The resident animals of the forest have lost part of their traditional movement corridors and feeding range, and now have to negotiate an increasingly fragmented landscape.

How far may an Indian leopard travel in search of food? Average daily range could be ten to thirty kilometres. A young leopard, in particular, may travel longer distances in search of a new territory.

So perhaps the sight of a leopard at Eco Park should not really surprise us.

Tigers, too, have been spotted and photographed near Kolar and Kerwa dams—on metalled roads carrying considerable traffic.

Wild animals do not recognise our roads, administrative boundaries or city limits.

Perhaps, then, the more pertinent question is not why a leopard has entered Eco Park.

It is: who has entered whose territory?

***

Dainik Bhaskar - 29/09/26

Comments

Kalyan Chakravarty, Senior Colleague

Human being is the biggest predator on earth . The lesson is to enlarge and redensify the forest habitat , not just to offer warnings not to disturb, taken as a moral homily , from the soft hearted romantics.

Subhash Khuntia, 

Batchmate and Dear Friend

Read your beautifully written blogs on the leopard, jackals and the python. On the outskirts of Bangalore, there are regular. sightings of leopards. You and Suhas Kumar, whom I know well, are spot on that we are encroaching on their habitat. In the villages of Odisha during our childhood days, jackals and other wildlife like foxes, rabbits, snakes cohabited the area, and nobody thought of eliminating them. Sometimes the jackals and foxes would grab a chicken or a duck, but that was taken as a part of life. 

When I was DC, South Canara, one part of the sprawling bungalow had a basement which was left unused, and the house was in a 30 acre forested terrain overlooking the sea. Jackals used to stay in the basement and would howl synchronously in the evenings. Once we noticed that a piece of our one year old daughter’s clothes  left to dry in the yard was missing. We were surprised, but then we discovered one day that a kite flying above swooped down and picked up a piece of cloth in its beak, perhaps to use it to fortify a nest. 

We of course know  about the rhesus macaque monkeys that frequent the trees around North Block in Delhi and enter the building in the evenings to reclaim their lost habitat of Central Ridge forest. Thanks, Prasanna for making us relive those memories.

M.M. Upadhyay, Batchmate and Dear Friend

Dear Prasanna,

Thanks for sharing this information.

Since the last few years, Bhopal citizens are aware of the presence of several tigers, with about ten in the forests skirting the city. These tigers have occasionally strayed into the city, but have not harmed any human being in the past more than a decade.

I'm sure this solitary panther will not be harming any of the encroaching residents.

C.P. Singh, 

Batchmate and Dear Friend

Thanks for sharing.

You have highlighted an important aspect of very common"' animal - human conflict" that is seen all over - especially in recently extended human settlements - usually by encroaching upon " once upon natural forest areas" by us ' civilised societies'.My own personal experiences( of Erode with a sizable natural forest areas of Sathyamangalam- Chamarajanagar ( Karnataka )Anthiyoor- burgur forest ranges and Coimbatore with 3 very dense  forest ranges- sanctuaries and national parks all surrounded by human settlements/ tea/ coffee estates  telling me the need for greater sensitisation of the human populations living in and around. They( humans living  in adjacent village areas)also have their own problems -- in those areas wild animals do come in human settlement areas often destroying their crops particularly banana, sugarcane etc at times also damaging/ attacking domestic animals /humans.  In TN detailed drill/ training/ orientation courses have been prepared and are part of the regular drill for people of peripheral villages. I am sure in MP also with so many parks/ wildlife sanctuaries / forest areas, it must have been worked out.  

Thanx for sensitising us. 

H.S. Pati, Batchmate and Dear Friend

Lucky for you, you share a natural habitat with the wild animals very close to your home. I am sure both of you can continue to enjoy the Eco Park without getting in each other’s way. 

During our last trip to Connecticut in the USA, me and Nita went out in the morning for our usual walk. We were walking along a regular two lane road which of course had very little traffic and lots of trees all around. On one side of the road there was a ravine which emitted the sweet melody of running water. On the other side of the road the jungle deepened as the slope steepened towards the top of a hillock. The place was absolutely beautiful and we were left undisturbed. But then suddenly almost after nowhere, there emerged a huge black bear almost as big as a buffalo and it came climbing out of the slope of the ravine and walked right onto the middle of the road blocking our path. Distance between us was hardly 50 metres and it was in no mood to scurry away. It stood there and looked at us. We stood there with our feet rooted. We stared back at that huge monster. After about a minute, it quietly turned and headed towards the jungle. We waited almost for 5 minutes hoping a vehicle will pass by. But nothing came and we resumed our walk heading home.

It was a thrilling experience. But the out come of it all was that our walk along that beautiful road was stopped forthwith. We had to go to the man made park for our regular mundane exercise.

Expert opinion was that had the bear been accompanied by a cub, which is quite common, then the mother would have felt threatened and would have attacked.

Sunita Tripathi, IAS (Retd)

In 2024, a leopard was spotted in Swarn Jayanti Park and the adjacent residential area. Forest department put a cage for a week , but there was no capture; and the park was opened assuming that the leopard had left !

(My Note: SJ Park is in the middle of a residential area near Shahpura lake.)