Residents of six tea gardens spread across three blocks of Malbazar subdivision of the foothills in Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri – the Dooars – have been living in fear for the past few months due to the movement of leopards in the area from adjoining forests.
Leopards have been moving frequently in the tea gardens, not only at night but also during the day.
This has led the state forest department to set up traps in all the tea gardens where the leopards have been spotted so far. Some have been caught as well.
The leopards caught earlier have been set free inside the dense forests, but the same leopards have been coming back to the tea garden region, forest officials suspect. Such frequent sighting of leopards is not very common, officials say.
In one such case, a leopard was released into the forest with a radio collar, and was found dead in one of the settlements inside a tea garden. The tea gardens which have seen the most visited by leopards in recent times are in Rangamati, Matiali, Nagrakata, Lisriver and Beitguri.
The state forest department authorities have started setting up camps for spreading awareness among local people on ways to avert attacks from leopards. The officials are distributing crackers among local people to ward off the leopards before they go out into the gardens for picking tea leaves. The labourers have also been advised to beat drums before going out to the gardens. A heightened surveillance is under way.
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