MUZAFFARABAD: A common leopard, which was found hanging from a tree with its paw entangled in a locally made wild boar trap in a suburban area of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) capital, had died of hypovolemic shock, according to a postmortem report.

According to Jazba Shafi, a wildlife range officer, the leopard was ensnared in a wild boar trap on Saturday night in Haryala, a mountain village on the periphery of the town of Patikka, and afterwards during frantic attempts to get itself rescued got entangled in a tree’s branch, leaving itself hanging topsy-turvy throughout the night.

Patikka is located around 18 kilometres northeast of here along the main Neelum valley road.

“Some villagers informed us about the plight of the animal at 8:15am on Sunday following which we rushed our five personnel to the area to rescue the carnivore, but in vain,” Ms Shafi told Dawn on Monday.

“The animal collapsed at about 1:45pm.”

Ms Shafi, who was at the head of the rescuers in Haryala village, regretted that the villagers did not cooperate with the wildlife officials and kept on making noise around the trapped animal, which made it “hyper aggressive.”

“They [villagers] were worried that if we let the big cat go, it might descend on their dwellings and cause harm to humans and their livestock,” she said.

The veterinary doctor who conducted the necropsy on Monday described ‘hypovolemic shock’ (cardiac arrest) as the cause of the animal’s death because “it remained caught in a trap for a long time and surrounded by a massive gathering of villagers.”

Wildlife and fisheries department director Naeem Iftikhar Dar said since wild boars had been causing heavy losses to villagers they would lay traps to ensnare them even though it was an offence under the Wildlife Act 1914.

“We would challan the person who had laid the trap that caused the death of the leopard both in the court of the wildlife magistrate and the concerned police station,” he said.

Published in Dawn, February 27th, 2024