Twenty-five leopards from Maharashtra have been relocated to Vantara, the wildlife rescue centre run by Reliance Foundation in Gujarat’s Jamnagar, PTI quoted state minister Ganesh Naik as saying in the state legislative council on Monday.
Naik added that the state government has signed an agreement with the Reliance Foundation to translocate 50 leopards to Vantara.
“We made a demand [to take the leopards] because 150 leopards were trapped in Pune district,” PTI quoted Naik as saying while speaking on the amendment of the Wildlife Protection Act as applied to Maharashtra.
On March 18, the Maharashtra Assembly approved the 2026 Wildlife Protection Maharashtra Amendment Bill seeking to introduce changes to the 1972 Wildlife Protection Act, the Hindustan Times reported.
The proposed amendment will empower the state government to capture and relocate leopards from one area to another, which otherwise requires approval from the Union government.
The bill was cleared by the council on Monday, PTI reported. It will only come into effect after receiving the president’s assent, as it proposes changes to a central law.
This came against the backdrop of repeated instances of man-animal conflict in Maharashtra amid a surge in the population of leopards. The minister said on Tuesday that the leopard population has gone up to 444 from 101 in the past seven to eight years,...
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