Leopard Attack At Khola - Canacona
The news papers today have brought the news of a leopard's attack on a women at Khola, which is once again, a reminder for all of us not to mess with the natural habitat of the wild life. One has to give full credit to the lady for her bravery and courage. This incident reminds me of my own encounter with a leopard last summer. Our villagers were agitating against the restarting of an abundant mine in our village last May (2008), during one of those days I was late coming home, around 9 PM, as usual I put my towel on my shoulders, shorts and soap in one hand and a more than a foot long megalight torch in the other and set out to the spring for my refreshing spring water bath. When I reached the spring there was no one around, mostly you find some one or the other, finding the spring to myself I thought of having a deep in the sea which was just a few steps away through rocks. I must have spent about 15 minutes in the sea, and then came back to the spring, and started splashing the fresh water all over my body, that gave me a wonderful refreshing feeling, then started soap application on the body, I had nearly finished with soaping, when suddenly I heard the sound of some one coming down the slope of the hillock, at the side of the spring, which was full of shrubs and bushes, at first I thought that one of the villagers who had gone fishing, was coming down to the spring, but the noise and movement suddenly ceased, no one came down, and I had a funny feeling at the back of my neck, I couldn't open my eyes, as my face was full of soap, so I threw some water till my vision was clear and went for the torch and focused it on the position from where the sound had come and to my utter disbelief, there on a small rock about 30 feet uphill from where I was standing was a leopard glaring at me, it was more than 2ft in height and over a meter in length, I went blank, I wanted to growl and scream to frighten the beast away but no sound came out of my mouth, then I realized that cats were scared of water, so my best option was to go back into the sea but for that, I would have to turn my back and walk through rock and it would be a good couple of minutes which would not be good enough if the leopard wanted to jump onto me, so what do I do, I do pray a lot but no prayer would come to my mouth, normally nothing ever scares me, ghosts, man nor beast, I had crossed paths with tigers and leopards a good many times in the past but never this close and on all other occasions I either had a knife, koita or a gun in my hand, but here I was defenseless and out of my wits, with just my underwear and a torch, both glaring at each other, couple of minutes passed but looked like eternity and finally I had some courage and growled (burrrrrrrr) as loud as I could and at the same time picked a big stone and hurled it in the leopards direction, that surely must have made it loose it's appetite for the white frothy hairy creature (me with soap), it suddenly turned back and disappeared into the bushed, first thing was I wanted to pee but I dared not take my eyes of the spot the animal had disappeared, after a couple of seconds I had realized I had stopped breathing and was gasping for breath, It was than that I realized that the leopard was thirsty and may have come for a drink, I could feel the hair on my back standing stiff, I just poured some water over my body, wiped myself and made my way home as fast as I could, went straight to the liquor cabinet poured a good shot of dudshri from the first bottle I could lay my hand on and did a bottoms up, just then my wife came out of the kitchen and looked amused and said did you see a ghost or something, I must have been a sight, it was only after the rosary that I narrated my narrow escape. All my three daughter were at home and you bet they were as frightened as I was. During my holidays this time I made sure I was in early to the spring for my refreshing bath, or just had a shower at home if I was late, did not want a stand off with the leopard again. This is just one stray incident. In our village dogs are kept indoors at night because of prowling leopards and tigers, if a dog is left out you'll not find it the next morning, so far no humans have been attacked in our village, this is the first instance I have heard that a leopard has attacked a human in the vicinity of our village and hope it's the last. Now getting back to the problem, Khola was 90 % forest area, but over the years trees have disappeared rapidly, like the receding hairline of most of us in the Gulf. At present not much cummuldade land is left in Khola, it's been encroached on or sold to outsiders by the Prabu Dessai's of Khola, who think that the cummuldade land is their own property. The politicians and the district level Authorities have been involved in these scams, thanks to one Mr. Floriano Fernandes, from Cabo-de-Rama, the Cabo-de-Rama, plateau has been ordered to revert back as cummuldade land on the survey records by the court. Before more of the wild life habitat is destroyed and we have more wild animals making it, into the villages and towns we should do something concrete to save the habitation of wild life, reports said that the Forest minister and the Conservator of forest visited the attacked women and promised help to the aggrieved women, is that enough ? During our agitation last year we gave a memorandum to the forest minister that the people who wanted to start mining had cut down trees illegally and given enough evidence, but no action was taken against the culprits, on the contrary we were asked to report to the police station and prove that the land belonged to us, how ironic can it get ? The message is crystal clear STOP MESSING with the HABITAT of WILD LIFE or the wild life will mess with yours. Stop mining, stop mega housing and live and let live Freddy Agnelo Fernandes -------------------------------------------------------- The content of this electronic communication is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed and any others who are specifically authorized to receive it. It may contain confidential or legally privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution or otherwise placing reliance on the contents of this information is prohibited and may be unlawful in certain legal jurisdictions. 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