The alert was raised early Monday morning after staff at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat) reported sighting two animals resembling leopards.
HYDERABAD: Suspense over the possible presence of two leopards on the ICRISAT campus continued on Tuesday with the forest department officials saying they are yet to get any picture from the camera traps installed in the institute showing leopards.
The alert was raised early Monday morning after staff at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat) reported sighting two animals resembling leopards. In response, the forest department deployed 20 motion-triggered camera traps across the 3,400-acre campus at Patancheru.
Two teams from the forest department remain on site, supervising search operations and closely monitoring the situation. Officials expressed hope that the camera traps will soon provide conclusive evidence.
Officials said four days ago, a similar sighting had turned out to be a false alarm. Images captured then were confirmed to be that of a jungle cat, which can resemble a leopard to the untrained eye when seen from a distance.
However, with Icrisat’s history of having leopards entering its campus in 2014 and 2019, forest officials said they are not taking any chances and are hoping that the installed camera traps will soon yield clear pictures that will help them determine if the two animals reported on Monday are leopards or not.
