ZAKHO, Kurdistan Region - Ranger police in Kurdistan Region’s Zakho administration captured a leopard in a village on Thursday and transferred it to Duhok Zoo after killing nearly 30 goats and injuring two villagers.
The female leopard, believed to be three-years-old, was found after she attacked the goats of Khwaja Yahya in Zreza village. The man who captured the creature initially did not know his livestock were killed by the leopard, so he set up a trap and was suprised to discover on Tuesday that the culprit was a leopard. She was injured in the leg after being stuck in the trap.
A number of villagers attempted to capture the animal but they could not. She attacked them, injuring two.
Ranger police, accompanied by environmentalists, were able to calm the animal and sent it to Duhok Zoo for treatment.
“It has lost too much blood. Therefore we need to provide it with antibiotics for 20 days or a month … We have lost its leg,” Sulaiman Tamar, Head of Kurdistan Environmental Organisation, told Rudaw.
Jamal Saado, a ranger commander, said they will amputate the leopard's injured leg and monitor its health, adding that “once it recovers, we will free it.”
A sample from the leopard's blood will be sent abroad to identify its species.
Once the process is complete, it is hoped that the animal will be released back into the wild. Leopards are a rare sighting, but the elusive creatures have been sporadically recorded in the Kurdistan Region.
