Forest official enters 100-feet-deep dry water well to rescue leopard in southern India

A range forest officer entered a 100-ft-deep dry well in to check on a leopard that fell into the well in southern India's Karnataka on July 17.

According to reports, the locals in the area called the forest department officers alerting them of a leopard stranded inside a dry well.

A team of officials including Nagarahole Tiger Reserve director, D Mahesh Kumar, and Antharasanthe RFO Siddaraju, rushed to assess the situation and rescue the animal.

The team tried to trace the leopard by lowering a camera, however, no visuals of the big cat were recorded.

"Our cameras did not get any visuals of the leopard, neither did we hear any noises from inside the well," Siddaraju told Newslions Media.

Following this, RFO Siddaraju decided to enter the well himself and rescue the animal.

However, after several attempts, Siddaraju failed to spot the leopard inside the well.

"The breadth of the cage is similar to the radius of the well.

My cage was closed from two sides with opaque metal cover.

Looking through the other two sides, I couldn't spot the feline and was pulled back up," Siddaraju said.

Forest staffers returned to the office around 8 pm but again they were summoned after villagers sighted the big cat.

This time the team heard noises from inside the well.

Investigating further with torches, they finally spotted the feline ducked on the floor.

The team spent the whole night arranging for ladders, trap net, and cameras to get a better view of the animal and rescue it.

The same night they lowered a bowl of water inside the well presuming that the feline would be thirsty after spending days without drinking.

On July 18, the forest officials covered the ground of the well with a trap net hoping to lure the leopard onto it and haul the animal out.

Meanwhile, the officials rigged the well with special cameras to get live updates from the well.

The video shows the leopard crouched one-feet-above the ground inside a small cave-like structure.

"Now we are waiting for the leopard to climb into the net so that we can pull it out.

We have placed a piece of meat on the trap net to bait the animal onto it," Siddaraju said.

However, the second option would be to lower a veterinarian into the well inside a cage and tranquilize the animal using a sedative dart.

According to forest officials, the leopard would then be administered medically and released into the wild.