Mysuru forest dept staff take to hand-feeding to save two rescued leopard cubs

Wildlife

If the rescued cubs manage to survive with the cow’s milk being offered to them, forest officials will take a decision on shifting them to a zoo.

Girisha

Forest officials at the T Narasipura range have taken to hand-feeding two male leopard cubs in an effort to save them while another rescued cub died on Sunday morning. If the two cubs manage to survive with the cow’s milk offered to them, forest officials will take a decision on shifting them to a zoo. The cubs, found in a sugarcane field at Battahalli Hundi in T Narasipura taluk on March 3, are being raised by forest department staff after their mother failed to turn up to retrieve the cubs. When the forest officials rescued the cubs, their eyes had not yet opened and they were probably a week old. According to forest officials, they were informed about the cubs by labourers who were harvesting sugarcane in the field. By the time the workers discovered the cubs, most of the sugarcane field was cleared. Officials said the mother might have fed the cubs in the morning and left but before she could return to the spot, local people had found them. The cubs were rescued under the guidance of Forest Range Officer Girish. The cub that died on Sunday was weak when it was found and hand-feeding was not successful, but the two other cubs are doing well as of now, said a forest official monitoring the cubs’ health. He added, “We are giving them cow’s milk and hope that it will sustain them. Mother’s milk is what they need but let’s hope they survive with cow’s milk.” “The two surviving cubs are under close observation by the staff and away from any sort of disturbance,” the officer said. After rescuing the cubs, the forest officials did their best to re-unite them with their mother in the sugarcane field, but the mother did not return to look for them. The reason for the mother staying away is human interference in the region. “Local residents had touched these cubs and there was a lot of movement near the field which might have led the mother to abandon its cubs,” the officer observed. Forest officials left the cubs at the spot from where they were rescued and kept watch from a fair distance from 6 pm to 6 am for three days, but there was no sign of the mother in the vicinity. It was then that they decided to hand-feed them cow’s milk with a feeding bottle. The cubs are doing fine in the custody of the forest staff. “They are playful,” said a staff member attending to the cubs. If they manage to survive through hand-feeding, the staff said that senior officials will decide on shifting them to a zoo in the state. However, sources said that Mysuru’s Sri Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens does not have space to accommodate newcomers so the cubs might have to be shifted to another zoo. Girisha is a freelancer who reports on wildlife and the environment.

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