BIJNOR: A carcass of a young leopard, the third in eight days, has been found in the dense forest close to Mohanwali area in Bijnor’s Najibabad's Kaudiya range. The condition of the carcass suggests that the leopard was killed by an older big cat in a fight over prey. The carcass of a cow was also found nearby.According to a forest official, “We have found pugmarks of a large leopard that must have clashed with the younger one over the cow. The adult one seems to have killed the younger one.”The incident took place on the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday and it came to the fore after villagers spotted the leopard carcass in the morning. Both forest department officials and police reached the spot and inspected it.On Tuesday, forest conservator of Bareilly PP Singh, conservator of Moradabad RP Singh, Najibabad’s divisional forest officer AK Mishra and a team from Bareilly-based Indian Veterinary Research Institute Bareilly visited the place and carried out a post-mortem of the leopard carcass.According DFO of Najibabad, AK Mishra, “We found a one and half year old male leopard dead in Kaudiya range and its postmortem was conducted on the spot. Going by the evidence we collected, it seems that the young leopard was killed by an adult in a fight over prey as a half-eaten carcass of a cow was also found lying close to the spot. However, investigation is on.”This is the third leopard death in a span of eight days. In each case, an adult and more powerful leopard killed a younger one. Earlier, the carcass of two cubs were found in a sugarcane filed at Tanda village on Thakurdwara road on January 7. The cubs’ carcasses were found in Bijnor divisional area. At that time also, forest department had claimed that an adult leopard might have killed the cubs in a fight over prey as officials had found a partially eaten carcass of a dog from the spot.

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