Mussoorie, Leopard sighting in the hill-station, that too in the heart of winters is not uncommon. Yet, CCTV footage of a leopard strolling into the empty hotel lobby in Barlowganj end of town, on the evening of 8th of January, has taken everyone by surprise.
The thirty-second clip shows how a leopard walks in through the hotel’s rear-lawn adjoining the oak forest below the property and saunters through the lobby at 6:48 p.m and exits from the hotel reception. The regal animal walks calmly through the lobby without any fear, looking around. Thankfully, there was no loss to life or property, but the video went viral within hours of being shared on the social media.
A few year’s ago an adult feline was caught on a CCTV camera of the Nirankari Bhawan, on the Camel’s Back road. While, last year, pug marks of a leopard were captured on a mobile camera by a resident living in Guru Nanak Fifth Centenary School.
While incidents like these are one off, but come winters and these majestic creatures move from the higher reaches to lower climes in search of food, making these sightings rather common.
If one was to go by history, then there is little to fear, assures author-photographer, Ganesh Saili, “Camel’s Back burial register recorded that a certain Clarence Thomas Wyatt died in January 1949 aged 33 and the cause of death recorded is ‘accidentally mauled by a panther (feline family).’
None-the-less, what is sad to see is how instead of roaming about the forests, wild animals like this one, have to find pleasure in the concrete jungles that have replaced his habitat by us humans, which might in the near future, give rise to man-animal conflict, for no fault of theirs.
Here’s a link to the CCTV video:
Leopard enters hotel lobby in Mussoorie
CCTV footage of a leopard entering a hotel lobby in Barlowganj, Mussoorie last evening
Geplaatst door Newspost op Woensdag 9 januari 2019
