Maharashtra Govt To Relocate 50 Leopards To Vantara Rescue Centre

Maharashtra intends to transfer about 50 leopards to private wildlife rescue and rehabilitation centre Vantara, established by Ambani’s Reliance Foundation. Most of these leopards are from the Manikdoh Leopard rescue centre, where leopards involved in human-animal conflicts from around the sugar belt of Junnar region near Pune are rescued and kept. Forest department officials view the emergence of the private forest like Vantara as a huge relief and see this transfer as a win-win solution for its rising cases of man-animal conflicts. “We have more than 100 leopards and about 40 tigers in our various rescue centres across the state. Currently our rescue facilities are already saturated and we are finding it difficult to handle more animals that need to be necessarily rescued from conflict situations including injured animals that need to be treated, says Jitendra Ramgaokar, chief conservator of forests (wildlife). Shifting some leopards over to Vantara, not only frees up space at government facilities but helps them accept animals that are rescued from emergency situations. Also, unlike tigers which are much sought after by various zoos across the country, there are few takers for leopards. Maharashtra’s leopard population has risen from 1690 in 2018 to 1985 in 2022 – – leading to increasing instances of man-animal conflicts. Between Jan 2024-Feb 2025, about 61 persons were killed and 648 injured in wild animal attacks in Maharashtra thus leading to public uproar. The state also intends to increase capacity of its leopard rescue centres and has initiated programs like reproductive control of leopards and even setting up AI-based alert systems, installing solar fencing and taking up awareness campaigns in high-risk villages. A similar strategy is also being considered for tigers, which has increased from 101 in 2020 to 444 in 2022.