Bhubaneswar: In what recalls the character of ‘Bagheera’ of Rudyard Kipling’s famed Jungle Book, a melanistic leopard popular as ‘black panther’ was spotted in Sundargrh forest that was captured for the first time in camera.
“It is the first ever footage of a black panther in the forests of Odisha,” said PCCF (wildlife) Sandeep Tripathy.
According to wildlife officials, leopard coat varies in colour and the melanistic type is a color variant of Indian leopard. The leopard in jet black melanistic form is called “black panther”.
Officials said the footage of this animal has been captured by the cameras installed in Garjanpahad reserve forest of Hemgir range of Sundargarh forest division since December, 2015 to track the movement of wild animals.
Out of three leopards – a mother and a cub duo – spotted in Garjanpahad reserve, one cub is jet black melanistic which is only one-year-old, they said, adding it is as shy as a normal leopard and is very difficult to detect.
PCCF (wildlife) researcher Bhakta Rath said it is for the first time that footage of a black panther has been captured in this division of Garjanpahad reserve forest that spread across Hemgir and Gopalpur ranges covering a total area of over 10,000 ha.
Although reports have it that a black panther had been sighted in Odisha 26 years ago, there are no scientific or pictorial records to establish this claim. Black panther is mostly found in densely-forested areas of southern India and Odisha is the ninth state where it has been sighted now.
Previously, melanistic leopards had been spotted in Kerala (Periyar tiger reserve), Karnataka (Bhadra tiger reserve, Dandeli-Anshi tiger reserve, Kabini wildlife sanctuary), Chhattisgarh (Achanakmar tiger reserve), Maharashtra (Satara), Goa (Mhadei wildlife sanctuary), Tamil Nadu (Mudumalai tiger reserve), Assam (Dibrugarh, Kaziranga National Park, Manas National Park) and Arunachal Pradesh (Pakke tiger reserve).
With spotting of this rare animal, PCCF (wildlife) officials claimed that Odisha is the only state blessed with melanistic leopard and melanistic tigers. Melanstic tiger was first reported in 1993 in Similipal. A carcass was also found in the same year. First photographic evidence to supplement the presence of melanistic tiger in Similipal was captured in 2007. In Nandankanan here, besides 15 normal tigers, there are seven white tigers and three melanstic tigers.
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