Last month, local villagers from Chiroga district in Bodoland, Assam chanced upon rare clouded leopard cubs in the jungle, with their mother nowhere in sight. Failing to find their mother, the volunteers have now decided to hand raise the cubs at the Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC) Transit Home in Kokrajhar.
When a male and a female cub were found by locals in Bodoland jungles they approached forest officials. The officers assisted by a local NGO admitted the cubs to the Transit Home run by IFAW-WTI (International Fund for Animal Welfare – Wildlife Trust of India).
But while the gesture seemed kind, it actually made the chances of the leopards going back into the wild and re-uniting with their mother all the more difficult.
“Locals pick up young animals found alone, often out of goodwill but end up displacing them. This is quite unfortunate. Our first priority with these cubs was to try and find the mother and reunite them,” said Dr NVK Ashraf, Chief Veterinarian, WTI.
To find the mother, the rehabilitation team visited the site at Kuklung Range. Here the cubs were left for three consecutive nights while cameras at crucial locations tracked the nocturnal visitors when the cubs were alone. In the morning the baby leopards were fed and cared by the volunteers.
Unfortunately, the three night vigil did not help re-unite the cubs with their mother.
“We found some pugmarks, but we are not sure if they were of the mother or some other cat. We waited for three days, but eventually had to withdraw as the cubs were growing weak,” said Brahmananda Patiri, Deputy Conservator of Forests, Chirang Forest Division.
The future for these cubs seemed to have been decided.
They will now be hand-raised by humans at the Kokrajhar Center that has already had success in raising two clouded leopard cubs in the past.
Once the cubs grow older, they will be released in the wild after a long acclimatization process. They will also be radio collared so as to know their whereabouts.
About Clouded Leopards
The clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) is a shy nocturnal, tree-dwelling wild cats found in India, among other countries. It is listed as a Schedule I species in the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. It is classified as ‘vulnerable’ in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, with only 10,000 mature individuals in the wild worldwide. Habitat destruction and poaching are among the major threats to the clouded leopard, which is also the smallest of the big cat species.
– Atula Gupta
Image by Sashanka Barbaruah/ WTI
Related Stories:
Locals Help Rescue Trapped Leopard in Assam
Indian Army to Help Snow Leopards
Rare Appearrance of Black Panther at Mhadei Sanctuary
2 thoughts on “Separated from Mother, Clouded Leopard Cubs to be Hand-raised by Humans”