Leopard hit by car
Report to Parks of Leopard incident
On Saturday morning at 10 am I received a call from Sedudu gate of injured leopard by Chobe Farms, I was on scene in 10 minutes.
On arrival there were many vehicles and observers.
Leopard was approximately 2 year old female and was recumbent by side of road but still alive. There was a large crowd of onlookers standing with in 3 meters of the leopard. I examined it briefly and noted it had a head and leg injury. On the way back to the vehicle to retrieve shock treatment the leopard got up and ran to the bush.Police were ineffective with crowd control an no one would offer me assistance from crowd or scientists on scene. This could have been a very dangerous situation were onlookers could have been seriously injured especially since leopard was conscious and could have recovered from the obvious concussion to brain
I loaded a dart with Zoletil and darted it to sedate her.After the safe 10 minute wait to make sure she was sleeping,I had to crawl on my stomach to retrieve the animal from under a bush and hole it had gone under.
On examination she had a head injury but most significantly her right hind leg had severe trauma and a broken bone. The leg could possibly be repaired but it would be a long and expensive ordeal and I could not guarantee that it would be able to hunt on its own again. Not having a proper facility to house her and treat her everyday I decided to euthanize her by injectable means. Parks took carcass away.
Far too many animals are being hit by cars on the tar roads by reckless and speeding drivers.
