from special correspondent

Udupi: As man keeps encroaching on the forest areas, the wild animals appear to come calling on the lookout for food for sustenance.

The leopards' visits to areas of human inhabitation continued on Friday, July 20 night, when a big cat found itself trapped in a well belonging to Louisa Noronha in Kukkupalke in Manipur near here.

She came out of the house to fetch water on Saturday morning, she realized that the water-pump was missing. As she peeped into the well, she found a leopard clutching its paws on the pipeline of the water pump to save itself from falling into water.

Then she recalled that her dog kept barking non-stop in the night and the leopard might have fallen into the well that time.

She informed the neighbours and they all chalked out a plan to rescue it. A long steel ladder was lowered into the well to allow the animal to climb up and come out.

It readily obliged and came out. Looking at the large crowd, it ran for its life into the forest. Its scare doubled as another dog, belonging to a neighbour, Baptist, began chasing it.

It was a risky plan all right, but was a successful one. Many of the residents felt that it was worth the try, since, if they had waited for the forest officials and the police, it could have drowned and died.

Some others expressed the fear that it might keep coming again and again looking for pet animals as prey.