The farmers of Tejewadi village in Maharashtra’s Pune district during the harvest season of sugarcane usually come across leopards and their cubs. That is what happened earlier this week when they spotted a lone cub without the mother.

Being accustomed to such incidents, they immediately got in touch with the Maharashtra Forest Department officials. The staff swung into action and rescued the cub and brought it to the Manikdoh Leopard Rescue Centre in Junnar which is run jointly by the department and Wildlife SOS, a non-governmental organisation.

The cub was subjected to a mandatory health check-up and the veterinary officer found the cub to be a female, who was 45 days old.

Along with Forest Department officials, the Wildlife team decided to reunite the cub with her mother at nightfall. They returned to the location from where the cub was rescued and placed her in a safe box. The camera traps placed at the site showed the mother coming and taking away her cub to safety.

Commenting on the incident, Dr. Chandan Sawane, Veterinary Officer, Wildlife SOS said: “As leopards are primarily nocturnal animals, they are most active at night. That is why reunions are planned during this time. We conducted a medical examination to rule out any health issues and following protocol, we carefully implanted the cub with a microchip before the release. This method makes it easy to identify leopards in the wild, and allows us to study their range and territory.”