A black panther, which had been creating havoc among residents in the oil township of Duliajan in Dibrugarh district for the past one month, was caged on Monday morning.
“The panther was first spotted near the new industrial area of Oil India Limited (OIL) about a month ago by security personnel. The movement of the black cat was captured by surveillance cameras inside the campus,” Lakhipathar Ranger Swapnanil Hazarika told Northeast Now.
Hazarika added, “Oil India officials informed us about the panther and following which we have successfully captured the panther today.”
The forest official informed that they placed a huge iron cage in the area 20 days back to capture the black panther.
However, the initial attempts to capture the big cat remained unsuccessful as it used to move in different places.
Hazarika said that the panther was later released inside the Charaipung reserve forest after initial observation.
Black panther, which is a rare species of the big cat family, is mostly found in the equatorial rainforests of Malaya and also in tropical rainforest of Mount Kenya, Java, Southwestern China, Myanmar and Nepal. In India, it is mostly found in Kerala and Assam. Black panthers are known as melanistic leopards in Asia and Africa and black jaguars in the Americas.