Why we are spotting wild animals in Human habitat?
Recently a news of sighting the leopard in the residential colony caught my attention and it is really a terrifying experience for the residents of the colony and posed risked to both the resident and the wild animal. Leopard might attack the resident and may end up fatally wounding or killing the residents and on the other hand resident in their defense might take any drastic response that may be fatal for the Leopard. Actually security personnel's were able to lock the Leopard on sewage treatment plant located on the building basement and informed the wild life authorities.
Wild life authorities quickly come into the action and with the help of their tools (cage with opening) and training they were able to guide leopard in the cage safely and afterwards they released the Leopard in its natural habitat i.e nearby forest. In this case all is well that ended well but it raises few concerns that how these incidents can be mitigated in future and if happens then what should be the plan of the actions.
I have few thoughts in this situation that will mitigate the situation or help in the case situation happens.
Conserve the forests/nature.
We should focus on the conserving the forests so that natural habitat of the wild animals do not shrink. Most of the wild animal astray due to their shrinking natural habitat or human set up their habitat too close to the forest area. We should avoid the situation in very first place that can cause conflict.
Do not offer food to wild animals.
Have you ever noticed the signs that simply instruct that we should not offer food to wild animals. Offering food poses at least 2 danger to both of us. Either that food is not good for the consumption of wild life or in other scenario if the wild animal liked that food then it will lounge for more and try to come close human for that food and it will be riskier for the both.
Be always cautious or deploy security measures and warning for alerts.
If you are really living close to these areas then setting up the proper security measures is must, Deploying of the surveillance system is really required. Keeping the fences high and monitoring the points of entry will help in early detection and alerting the required authority.
Be get trained.
If you are living in the vicinity of the wild areas, it is better to get trained or have the knowledge of what to do or what not to do in the case of encounter with wild animals.
Keep the help numbers handy.
Again, if you spot the wild animal, quickly informing the wild life official will be the great move. They are trained to deal with the situation and as soon they can arrive in scene, they will with their proper tool will ensure that no one will get harmed in this process.
Do not dump the waste especially food waste in open.
If you are living in the vicinity of wild areas, dumping the food waste in open will attract the prey and in turn these prey can attract the predators. So it is better to not to attract both of them.
Human an wild animals are co-existing for long and we should ensure the co-existence for the future too. Everything in the nature require balance and disturbing this balance can have catastrophic effect.