AURANGABAD: A full-grown leopard had been spotted in the Ellora Caves, situated 30km from here, in about 2am on Monday.
The large cat was drifting around the counter of the planet tourist and heritage website in search for prey.
The team of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) running the night shift in the caves viewed the leopard until it evaporated into the local greenery.
Monument attendant Devidas Jagtap stated they had been alarmed to the leopard’s existence following a couple of dogs sleeping around the ticketing counter began biting seeing the large cat.
“It was a huge leopard as well as the team originally believed it for a tiger.
The forest department afterwards verified this had been a leopard.
We assessed the footage of 2 CCTVs in the ticketing counter where the creature’s entrance and exit until its short stay of about one-and-half moment are observable,” he explained.
ASI staffers stated a leopard had been seen approximately one-and-a-half months back from the mountain range which nestles the Ellora Caves.
“Nevertheless this is really for the very first time a large cat has really entered the assumptions of these plantations,” Jagtap stated.
Divisional forest officer (wildlife) Vijay Satpute stated there wasn’t any need to fear.
“The mountain range close to the caves is adjoining to the Gautala-Autramghat wildlife refuge and it’s a component of their normal habitat of leopards.
The creature should have strayed to the caves searching for prey like dogs or monkeys.
Such motion by leopards from this sanctuary would occur only through the nighttime , not in the daytime,” he added.
While the previous wildlife census of 2019 set the official count of leopards at the refuge in 26, the amount is predicted to have become within the last couple of decades.
Formerly, a tiger had been seen two or three kilometres away in the Ajanta Caves, another world heritage site in Aurangabad district, even in January this past year.