Leopard wanders inside a Mercedes-Benz facility in Pune

Web Desk

21st Mar, 2022. 08:22 pm
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A leopard wandered inside the sprawling Mercedes-Benz factory in Pune, leading the building to be partially evacuated and activities to be paused for about 6 hours, according to press reports. The large cat was rescued after the Wildlife SOS team worked tirelessly for a long time.

Around daybreak today, employees at the Chakan site were horrified to see a leopard wandering around the facilities of the luxury automotive manufacturing company. After the initial alarm subsided, a Maharashtra Forest Department team arrived on the 100-acre manufacturing plant and took leadership of the situation.

Surprise visitor at @MercedesBenzInd car plant today
Forest dept officials are trying to rescue the Leopard. All employees told to go home, no production or dispatches today pic.twitter.com/PelLyiXSKA
— Sirish Chandran (@SirishChandran) March 21, 2022

The teams of Dr Shubham Patil and Dr Nikhil Bangar spotted the leopard hidden on the shop floor of one of the production sheds and secured the area after a six-hour operation. The two teams were successful in luring and trapping the unhappy feline, shooting a tranquillizer dart from a safe distance, and numbing it before capturing it about 11.30 a.m., nearly 6 hours after it was first spotted.

The leopard was transferred to a special transportation cage and sent to a facility in Junnar, where it is still being monitored before being released into the wild, according to MFD Range Forest Officer Yogesh Mahajan. According to Dr Bangar, a Wildlife Veterinary Officer of the Wildlife SOS, the leopard is a male.