A male panther, which has kept the forest officials on tenterhooks and residents in fear by making the semi-urban environs of Himayatsagar reservoir its home, has been successfully trapped on Saturday night.
The cat has been prowling the Rajendranagar area for the last five months, making occasional appearances and leaving its trail behind. In May this year, its appearance under the Katedan bridge created a commotion, from where it had escaped into a private farm in Shamshabad pursued by the Forest officials and the police, and disappeared from there.
A fortnight later, its image was caught in a CCTV camera of the Greyhounds training centre in Rajendranagar limits, while the feline was crossing into the Gaganpahad forest area. While the villagers around Himayatsagar have been vouching occasional panther sightings later too, foresters have not confirmed it. Any number of cages set up with bait went futile.
On Friday, upon receiving information about killing of two calves in a private land at Premavathipet village of Rajendranagar, officials rushed to the spot and confirmed the pug marks of the panther. They arranged two cage traps using the carcasses of the very kills as baits, and installed 10 camera traps too at the location by Saturday evening.
On Sunday morning, they checked the location to find the panther growling inside one of the two trap cages. The animal has since been shifted to the Nehru Zoological Park, where it is being treated for minor bruises incurred during its attempt to escape from the metal cage, officials informed. The six-year-old panther will be kept under observation for two days, after which it will be released into the wild, they informed.
