Trap for neelgais may have killed lioness

AHMEDABAD: Officials of the forest department believe that the lioness found dead on Friday in a 35-ft-deep well in a village in Savarkundla municipality of Amreli district, died after it got caught in a trap laid for large animals. The officials said that the trap may have been laid for a neelgai but after the lion got trapped in it and died, it may have been thrown into the well to give it the appearance of an accident. But the mistake that was committed was that the body was dumped in a well with a strong parapet of over 4.5 feet

Officials said that in order to ensure that the animal's body does not float to the surface easily, a tin was tied to its neck so that the weight kept the body at the bottom of the well for quite some time.

"This is a serious incident and we are not ruling out any possibility. We are investigating each aspect of the death of the lioness," said chief wildlife warden, CN Pandey.

The possibility that the big cat was electrocuted also cannot be ruled out, an official said. Hs said that as the body was in an advanced stage of decomposition, it is difficult to estimate if the animal was electrocuted or not. Officials found that this year, farmers had been illegally electrifying the fence erected around their fields to protect their crops from wild animals. When the animal comes in contact with any of these live wires, it dies. The farmer or the owner of the farm then dumps the animal carcasses in nearby wells, fields or waste land to show their deaths as 'accidents'.

It may be recalled that earlier in August forest officials had recovered a carcass of a lion that was electrocuted near a village in Visavadar.