Have you Ever Faced a Leopard?
Yes I know that's not a Leopard in the Thumbnail but I felt that this picture was really cool so I had to make it my Thumbnail.
As for the answer to my question, Yes I have indeed faced a Leopard, and before some of you start to say I am lying let me remind you guys that I have lived in Tea Gardens which in most cases are quite close to Forests and National Parks as well. In fact, I have come across Elephants, Wild Monkeys, Bison, Tigers, and even a freaking Bear. But this time I will be talking about the Time I had to face a Leopard.
So my encounter is from when I was like 24 and stayed in a Tea Garden called Atiabari Tea Estate that is located in the Alipurduar District of WestBengal. If you are from Westbengal then you probably have stumbled across a few articles stating about Leopard sightings around that area. I feel like Leopards are quite docile animals as they used to run away anytime a bunch of humans showed up. But things took a whole another route when one day a Leopard got cornered by some men and to escape he badly hurt some people.
In comes the Cavalry
By Cavalry I mean the Forest Officers that came to us and gave us Trap Cages to trap the Leopards so that they could relocate them deep into the Jungle. That month we caught like 4-6 Leopards and they were safely taken away but it was the 7th one that took us by surprise.
It was Winter Season and we used to play Badminton with all the Garden Staff and Family with some other activities as well. This was almost a daily thing for us and I used to love it. Around that time a Leopard was circling around the fences and I could hear it pretty clearly(Thanks to my Impeccable Hearing). I am not kidding I do have quite a good hearing so I could hear something wasn't right so I asked everyone to gently go inside the house as something was wrong. Fortunately for us, as we were relocating we hear a Trapo Door go down and the Leopard was trapped. The Leopard screamed a lot as he was trapped and we informed the Forest Officers about it. Now there is no way to know if that Leopard meant any harm as I said before Leopard usually avoids gatherings but at the same time, we did have some food beside the Badminton Court that we were eating so it could have gone either way. I am just glad that everyone was ok.
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