Bareilly: Seven months after officials of the forest department, World Wide Fund (WWF) and Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) tranquilised a sub-adult tiger hiding in the defunct rubber factory in May, forest officials have confirmed the presence of an adult leopard on the factory premises, nearly 18 kilometres from the city.PP Singh, conservator of forest, Bareilly circle, told TOI, “The leopard has been living in the factory before the arrival of the tiger in March. But, due to presence of a large carnivore like tiger, the leopard had left the factory. Even during the Operation Tiger, we had found old pugmarks of a leopard on the factory compound. After the tiger entered the factory, we had found the movement of a leopard in adjoining villages. However, after the harvesting of sugarcane got over in the villages, the leopard returned to the factory. Easy availability of food and water drew the animal back to the factory.”TOI had also reported that pug marks of a leopard were found in dozen of villages under Meerganj sub-division of the district.Forest department will soon install six camera traps here. “We will monitor the leopard’s movement through CCTV cameras, while a forest team has been camping on the site. The leopard can move out of the factory in search of a mating partner. We have informed the principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife) about it,” said Singh.Ravindra Singh, a security guard at the factory, said, “The factory has a total of 22 guards for both day and night shifts. We are scared. We sit in a group near the main entrance gate, and don’t move inside the factory campus. On Sunday, a villager spotted the leopard on the top of a building on the factory campus.”According to forest officials, the rubber factory (Synthetic and Chemical Limited Company), spread over nearly 1,200 acres, was closed in 1999. Over the years, the defunct factory turned into a mini forest, providing a suitable habitat to big cats. The factory has a good population of nilgai, blackbuck, wild boar and abandoned cattle, besides a pond of clean water.After the tiger ‘Fateh’ took refuge in the defunct factory in March, forest officials had a tough time tracing its exact location due to dense vegetation, buildings, tunnels and trenches on the campus. The tiger was tranquilised on May 3 and shifted to Kanpur zoo.

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