Watch: Indian officials’ failed attempt to catch leopard in West Bengal
A failed attempt to ensnare and move a leopard from a residential area in the state of West Bengal, India, was caught on video and left at least one person injured, according to a report.
Officials in the town of Raiganj tried to use a net to catch the big cat, which fought its way out and is still on the loose, Reuters reports.
“Many efforts were made to capture a leopard which entered the residential area, but it gave us the slip. One man got injured. As of now, we don’t if we can recapture it as we don’t know its whereabouts,” a local volunteer, Sumit Nandy, told Reuters.
The injured man was treated at a local hospital.
Leopards are protected in India, though more are straying into cities and villages to search for food as their habitats shrink, leading to frequent, often videotapped run-ins between the big cats and people in urban settings.
In 2014, a leopard injured six people and drove residents indoors in a bustling northern Indian city, Meerut. That leopard wandered through an army hospital and a crowded market setting off a minor stampede in which two more people were hurt.
In February of last year, people caught video footage of a leopard terrorizing a school in southern India.