Hurt leopard has zoo in dilemma

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Zoo veterinary hospital employees are having a hard time caring for the injured 10-year-old leopard which was originally captured from Kannur three months ago. Despite trying every effort, the male leopard is not eating food or medicine-laced milk. The severely stressed big cat has to undergo more blood tests outside Kerala to check its antibodies to rule out any deficiencies in the antibody level. Last week the leopard’s badly injured tail was amputated and it is since recovering well. But the major concern for the veterinary hospital authorities is the leopard’s refusal to eat. 

Even though it is the eighth day since the leopard was brought to the city Zoo, it is firm on not eating anything. A top Zoo official told DC that usually the animals would eat after a gap of a few days when they experienced fatigue. “Unfortunately this leopard is an enigma to us. It is definitely a peculiar leopard as usually animals tend to eat something once they are hungry. The blood tests revealed that it had an inflated level of 16,000 total count and the globulin and albumin levels were high which showed that it had a chronic infection”, said a top Zoo official.

They have decided to send the leopard’s blood to a medical laboratory outside the State so as to identify any issues with its antibodies so that any serious illnesses can be ruled out. But when the leopard had undergone amputation on its tail, they had taken blood samples which revealed that it was severely affected with worms. But the veterinary hospital officials do not want to inject a dart into the leopard again for fear of stressing it further. The leopard was originally captured from a railway track in Kannur.