Leopard roams in the vicinity of Aarey Colony in Mumbai

• A video showing a leopard wandering through a walled courtyard of a home went viral.
• The video is dated June 1 and shows the time as 2.43 am.
• The tweet quickly gained traction, and the video received over 160 million views.

In Mumbai’s Aarey Colony on Sunday, a video showing a leopard wandering through a walled courtyard of a home went viral. The video is dated June 1 and shows the time as 2.43 am. It looks to have been captured on a CCTV camera.

Susanta Nanda, an employee of the Indian Forest Service, posted the one-minute, 17-second long video on Twitter. Nanda’s tweet quickly gained traction, and the video received over 160 million views.

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“The original forested region of Aarey Colony and neighboring places have reduced over the past 50 years or so, due to rising up of industrial units, residential buildings, hotels, etc. hurting the wildlife,” a Twitter user commented in response to the video.

The original residents of Aaray colony, Mumbai, taking a stroll last night pic.twitter.com/tahXBhVzpC

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— Susanta Nanda IFS (@susantananda3) July 1, 2022

When man starts grabbing forests, it is natural for animals to go anywhere hunting for food. We are the ones disrupting the natural order.

— KAVIRAJ PATIL (@patil_kaviraj) July 2, 2022

Perhaps this could be one of the last video of these lovely residents strolling carefree in their natural habitat once the metro car shed takes over?

— Pappu (@PappuSh51568941) July 2, 2022

& there are still ppl who don’t believe #Aarey hosts wildlife. Would be interesting to see how many of those are willing to take a stroll at night in this forest. In fact there are some who even debate if Aarey is a forest!! #SaveForest to #SaveSoil

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— Prasad (@PledgeGren) July 2, 2022

Probably wondering who’s taken over what used to be ours. We humans have encroached upon their area, got into the jungle in the name of advancement, deforestation was required for that..and now we’re facing the results.

— Rina Ghose (@GhoseRina) July 2, 2022

The original forested area of Aarey Colony and nearby areas have shrunk over the past 50 years or so, due to coming up of industrial units, residential bldgs, hotels etc affecting the wildlife.

— Balakrishnan KK (@KKBALAKRISHNAN) July 3, 2022

Near and around the Aarey Colony, leopards have regularly been seen. A leopard wandered inside a school in Mumbai’s Goregaon neighbourhood, which is close to Aarey Colony, last month. The leopard was recovered in a joint effort by the police and the forest department.

This most recent leopard sighting also occurs after Eknath Shinde, the new chief minister of Maharashtra, decided to postpone the building of the Colaba-Bandra-SEEPZ Metro car shed next to Aarey Forest. Aarey Forest’s rich fauna and natural environment, in the opinion of activists, will suffer from any extensive construction.

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Aarey Forest, an 800-acre area designated as a reserve forest in 2019, is thought to be home to up to 290 species of wildlife.