Bhopal: One of the two leopards released in the wild in Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh’s Sheopur district earlier this month has been spotted walking out of the reserved forest and heading towards Rajasthan’s Ranthambore Wildlife Sanctuary, official sources said on Monday. .
The leopard, believed to be Agni, was spotted on Sunday afternoon near the Polytechnic College in Sheopur district, 25 km from the national park, and was captured by some passers-by on their mobile phone cameras.
“We cannot disclose the current location of the leopard (for security reasons). But the leopard is safe and the monitoring team is monitoring it round the clock,” Kuno National Park Field Director Uttam Kumar Sharma told this newspaper on Monday.
The forest officer said that the leopard may have come out of the original area of the national park.
Two leopards named Agni and Vayu were released in the forest of Kuno National Park on December 6 after living in a large enclosure for about a year.
Along with 12 leopards kept in large enclosures for the past one year, 22 other leopards are going to be gradually released into the forest of the national park.
Eight cheetahs were brought from Namibia to Kuno National Park in September 2022 in the first transcontinental translocation of carnivores under the Cheetah Introduction Project in India.
Six months later, under the same project, 12 more leopards were brought to Kuno National Park from South Africa.
Many leopards in the national park have died and some female leopards have given birth in the last two years.
Kuno now houses 24 cheetahs, including 12 cubs.