In what seems to be a miraculous story for a leopard that became stuck at the bottom of a 60-foot deep well in India, a team of locals came together to rescue the animal, all while keeping everyone involved in the rescue safe.
The story goes something like this: the animal was stuck at the bottom of the 60-foot well, although it’s not really certain how it got there. Nearby residents heard the animal making its loud noises from the bottom of the hole, and when they discovered the animal was trapped, they contacted authorities.
Image Credit: Wildlife SOS/YouTube
A long chain of phone calls was then made, passing the news from agency to agency, until the right officials were contacted for the job. The Wildlife SOS-ran agency scrambled to get to the scene quickly so they could respond to the distressed animal.
The team lowered a platform down the well to the animal, on which the animal then got on top of. Once it was successfully put on top of the platform, a cage was lowered for the safety of the officials performing the rescue.
As you can probably imagine, the cat was hesitant to get into the cage, but after a while, seeing no other way out, it eventually warmed up to the idea. Once the officials got it inside of the cage, they were able to pull the animal up and out of the well.
Without the quick-thinking on behalf of the residents who called in the emergency, as well as the rescue agency that came out to get the leopard out, the animal would have undoubtedly drowned in the water at the bottom of the well.
The rescue operation took about three hours; nevertheless, it seems the team got there fast enough to save a life.
A video of the rescue is available on Wildlife SOS’ YouTube channel, and you can watch it below:
After the rescue was completed, the leopard was released back into the wild to go about its own business.
National Geographic notes that although this was a good-faith rescue by local teams, the leopard is still losing ground to habitational development. This was a good example set for conservation efforts, but the leopard species as a whole is still struggling to survive in the wild.
Source: Wildlife SOS via National Geographic