QUETTA, May 11: Two leopards were spotted in the Takato mountain range, north of Quetta valley, during the recent snowfall.

“Villagers found footprints of leopards going up to the peak of a mountain,” an official of an NGO working for preservation of wildlife told newsmen during a trip to the mountain range.

The animals might have come from Afghanistan in search of food.

According to local people, the leopards attacked a goat in a village. They said a black leopard, also migrated from Afghanistan, had been seen in the Luckpass area of Chilton range a few years ago.

Naeem Khan Bazai, a wildlife expert, said that according to a survey carried out in 2000, there were only eight to 10 markhors in the Takato range, but the number rose to about 300 in 2012 because of NGOs’ efforts.

He said markhors were found in the Takato range, the second highest peak in Balochistan.

“Some influential politicians, local elders and senior government officials visit the Takato range for poaching despite a ban on hunting of precious and rare wildlife species in the area,” Mr Bazai said.

The Takato range had animals of different species, including leopard, markhor, wolf, jackal and rabbit, he added.

He accused employees of the provincial Forest and Wildlife Department of helping influential politicians and bureaucrats from some powerful institutions.

He claimed that these employees gifted or sold eagles, chakores (red-leg partridges) and guest Siberian birds to influential people.

Some officials, he said, issue certificates to poachers to the effect that hunted markhors had been found dead in the mountainous area. The poachers sell stuffed animals in the international market.

The Takato range has about 110 medicinal herbs used in manufacturing antibiotics and painkillers. Villagers cut Juniper trees for fuel wood.

Later, journalists visited the Kachh dam built by former military ruler Ayub Khan. The dam is filled with mud up to 80 feet.