Saturday 10 December 2016

ARTICLE: Deaths due to attack by tigers showing decreasing trend, New Delhi

Over 30 people have died due to attack by tigers in the country in 2015-16, the government said on Monday and asserted that such deaths have shown a “decreasing” trend. “As per the latest information received from the states, the number of people died due to tiger attack is showing a decreasing trend,” Environment Minister Anil Madhav Dave said in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha.

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ARTICLE: Why Delhi and its only known leopard both deserve a chance

Even before the news that a leopard had settled in the Yamuna Biodiversity Park could sink in, Delhi rushed to decide its fate. The cat has troubled nobody but a trap cage is already in place. Once captured, it will be packed off to some forest in Haryana or Uttarakhand.


To many, the news of a resident leopard in the national capital was nothing short of a miracle. Imagine an apex predator sharing the world’s foulest air with us, lounging next to one of the city’s busiest arterial roads, by a river long reduced to a toxic drain. If the environmental disaster that is Delhi needed a signal of hope, this was probably it.

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PHOTOS: Cannibal Leopard and Prey

Territorial leopards will occasionally kill and eat their younger competition, but it's rare to glimpse the act firsthand.

In shocking photos, a leopard can be seen pulling another leopard’s carcass out of a tree, presumably to eat it.

There are many examples of leopard cannibalism in the wild, and experts speculate on the likely causes. In the most common scenario, older male leopards will kill younger ones to ward off competition and stake their territory.

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SIGHTINGS, UK: Big cats prowling Welwyn Hatfield

Herts Police confirmed that between 2011 and 2016 there were 26 reports of big cats prowling in the wild.


The majority (11) were of a panther, with one informant, in 2011, saying that after seeing a sheep being eaten by a panther, they “ran all the way home and our dog was going crazy, barking and yelping”.


Of the 26 reported sightings, nine were classified as unknown species, but shared similar characteristics with callers telling the police the big cats were “very large” or the same size as a Labrador, brown or gingery in colour – and in one incident, just 20ft from the informant.

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NEWSLINK, USA: How does a cougar end up on Vashon Island?

At first glance, it looks like just another sad missing pet sign, tacked beside the front-porch entrance to the Coffee Roasterie on Vashon Island. It’s not. It says, “found cat,” and when you look closer, you see a photograph of the feline in question: tawny coat, long tail, upright ears. It’s a cougar.

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NEWSLINK, India: Leopard and Tiger killed after both attack and injure several people

As Thursday came to a close, it left in its wake two terrible headlines. First came from Gurugram where a leopard was clubbed to death after it mauled nine people in Mandawar village. Second reached us from Assam where a Royal Bengal tiger was killed after it gravely injured three people.

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