Pune has too times seen wild animals straying into the resident areas. The year 2008 itself witnessed three such incidents where a leopard, a python and a Spotted Dear were found into the urban areas. That itself created panic as well as curiosity as to how these animals came to stray into the human domains? But there are suspicious factors behind these types of the events.
Shekhar Nanajkar, president of WILD, an organisation working in the field of conservation of forests and wildlife has come up with the statement to this effect. In his statement, he has said that whenever a wild animal is found in the city’s limits, it is always said that it has come through the forest. But it is always a different case. “Some people keep these animal in captivity, even though it is banned by law. When these animal are found out, there is a motive to turn their status into legal one,” he says.
Just yesterday, a spotted deer was found by two people in the Bavdhan area and was released in the wild. The deer had some minor injuries on its mouth and was given immediate treatment. After administering treatment, the deer was taken in a vehicle and released in the forest area in Khadakwasla. Eight months before that, a leopard was found in a housing colony in Nigdi. It seems that leopard has been spotted in Pune almost each year in the last 10 years.
Nanajkar says, “Animals are wary of the humans and they will never enter the urban areas. Even in deep forests, they try to avoid the areas where they feel human presence. Even wild animals can get their food in the villages and they have no reason to enter the cities.”
He has even accused that some affluent people are involved in keeping wild animals unlawfully. Villages around Pune and Lonavala are known to be trading centres of wild animals. Forest department turns a Nelson’s eye towards these incidents on the pretext of sghortage of manpower.
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