Angry villagers in Pakistan beat leopard to death for attacking livestock

Islamabad: Pakistan lost a second leopard in less than three weeks as angry villagers killed another big cat near the bank of River Jhelum in northern Pakistan.

Some 200 locals chased a common leopard until it was trapped behind a rocky slope and then caught the wild animal with rope traps in Sarai village of the hilly Hattian Bala area of Jhelum Valley in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Video clips shared on social media showed the big cat trying to hide behind the rocks encircled by the crowd. In one of the videos, screams of frightened women could also be heard. There were reports of locals being slightly injured as the leopard rushed towards them in fear.

The local police force and the wildlife department were called but they arrived when the furious villagers had beaten the leopard to death, seeking revenge for attacking and killing their cattle.

Another leopard lost

“Another leopard killed today. We will hardly any have common leopards left in Pakistan at this rate” deplored Rina Saeed Khan, the chair of Islamabad Wildlife Management Board (IWMB). She called the killing “unacceptable” and insisted that “the culprits must be punished.” Local police have filed a report against the attackers but have not made any arrests yet.

The common leopard is critically endangered in Pakistan. Leopard attacks are often reported in northern Pakistan in winters when the animals come down from the snowy hills to venture near human settlements in search of prey, leading to conflicts that have led to lethal injuries to humans and retaliatory killing of leopards. The increasing numbers of human-wildlife conflicts require the urgent implementation of strategies to protect both the people and the endangered animals, experts say.

Awareness and compensation

“There’s a need for greater awareness and more importantly we need a compensation scheme for losses of the livestock to the local community” to encourage locals to protect animals that play a vital role in keeping the ecosystem balance, Rina Saeed told Gulf News.

Besides financial compensation for local communities, experts suggest improved protection for livestock to deter leopards, habitat improvement and better forestation, the reintroduction of wild prey, to make human-wildlife coexistence possible.

This was the second leopard killing in the region recently after a female leopard died from injuries sustained after being hit by at least six pellets from a shotgun on January 22. The AJK wildlife department reported that 10 leopards had been killed in the human-leopard conflict. The annual number has drastically reduced in recent years due to mass awareness and social media coverage that leads to swift police action, officials said.