Chandigarh:
A leopard has been stuck in a cable-carrying pipe under the runway at the Indian Air Force (IAF) station in Chandigarh for the last 11 days.
Forest officials said frantic efforts were on in a bid to free the big cat stuck in the 75-foot underground pipe at the station's subsidiary runway here.
Officials from the nearby Chhatbir Zoological Park today laboured hard for new methods to rescue the animal after earlier efforts failed.
Chandigarh's Chief Wildlife Warden Santosh Kumar says the team is hopeful the leopard will be taken out alive soon.
Over the last days, the officials have devised several techniques, including keeping a chicken and a goat near the pipe as bait, flushing water down the pipe and bursting crackers but the leopard has refused to come out.
Experts from the Wildlife Institute of India also visited the site yesterday.
About a fortnight ago, IAF personnel had seen the animal at the station and the Wildlife Department had been informed. The leopard was later spotted inside the pipe under the IAF runway.
"He can survive without any food for about 15 days. Though he has had water, the leopard has not had any food. We have confined him to a 25-foot area now and are hoping he will come out soon. We are trying different methods and keeping our fingers crossed," Kumar said.
He said it was not known how the leopard landed in the IAF area.
"But it looks like that he has been inside the pipe on earlier occasions too," the official said, adding a team of veterinary doctors was also present at the site.