Three Tiny Leopard Cubs Reunited With Their Mother Near Pune

Hinjawadi, 26th January 2022: Three leopard cubs were reunited with their mother near Nere, Hinjawadi, yesterday evening.

On 24th January, three leopard cubs, two female and one male between 15-20 days of age, were discovered by a local farmer while his sugarcane field was being harvested in the morning. Pune Forest Department and RESQ CT (Wildlife) team reached the location to secure the cubs.

A reunion attempt was made the same evening but was unsuccessful and the mother did not show up for her cubs possibly due to the disturbance that was present at the location during the day.

The cubs were transferred temporarily to the RESQ Wildlife Treatment Transit Centre (TTC) to ensure they remained in good health and hydrated. Followed by a health checkup, a second effort to reunite them with the mother was done on 25th January evening. The teams set up the reunion basket, cameras and just before leaving they carefully collected urine from all three cubs and left a scent trail for the mother to pick up and lead her to the cubs.

“The mother leopard arrived at 7:30 pm and sensing their mother’s presence, the cubs began calling to her loudly. She systematically retrieved them one by one and shifted them to a safe location. Finally, they were successfully reunited,” said Rahul Patil, Deputy Conservator of Forests, Pune.

“While the Forest Department and Wildlife RESQ teams put in their best efforts to reunite the cubs with the mother, most importantly, this reunion would not have been possible without the incredible cooperation and support of the Jadhavs, the farmer and his family, who owned the land which the leopardess has littered. They stopped the harvesting immediately and expressed clearly that they had no issues with the leopard living on their land because in their experience these leopards have been living around for last few years and cause no problems to humans at all,” said Neha Panchamia, Founder, RESQ CT, Pune.

The reunion operation was carried out by Pune Forest Department, RFO Santosh Chavan, Meera Kendre and RESQ CT Wildlife team – Neha Panchamia, Tuhin Satarkar, Naresh Chandak, Sumedh Tarde, Sonesh Ingole, Shreenath Chavan, Akash Raut, Amit Todkar, Nachiket Utpat, Sayali Pilane, Asim Patel.