The cub got her name 'MILESTONE' and is still with us and according to my last meeting in Department of Wildlife Conservation, we will be looking after her for the next 18 months until the government can manage something for it. People here are not in mood to believe that leopards can ever be rehabilitated. Our idea, on which people from Zoo and and department have agreed to help, is to put best effort on preparing milestone from now onwards for a successful rehabilitation in the future. Intensive monitoring for a month after the cub's release to ensure its survival and also to ensure safety of people around the jungle would make the project more feasible; as main reasons for the rehabilitation of leopards being unsuccessful are 1. getting killed in retaliatory cases by humans 2. getting killed by the wild ones 3. dying out of hunger with no idea of hunting. If we can work on these aspects, I believe we can send Milestone back to her natural home some day. We don't want to see her inside a cage in the zoo.If time and situation permits we can always think of good strategies and ideas on rehabilitating Milestone but the first priority is her survival and well being till the age of 18 months.
We could have easily denied the responsibility of looking after her because it is not good to take responsibilities with no preparation and no resource but as there was no one to take charge of and to look after it we had to take this step, no one knows what would have happened to her by now, otherwise.
However, as preparation we have build quite good links with ecologists, veterinarians and government officials, here but beside this we need your help any way you can.
We all together need to give Milestone a new and better life....
