Black beauty spotted
Following the excitement over camera footage released by the Wildlife Dept of a rare sighting of a black leopard, Kumudini Hettiarachchi speaks to Wildlife officials and leading conservationist Dr. Sriyanie Miththapala
Random talk of sightings by villagers and a few tragic deaths in snares have kept people’s curiosity piqued about this uniquely beautiful Big Cat.
The only Big Cat in Sri Lanka, the graceful and powerful leopard ( Panthera pardus kotiya) is special by itself, but the black of its kind is extra-special.
And so it is that the news of the ‘capture’ of a black leopard on camera traps set by the Department of Wildlife Conservation (DWC) has sent a thrill of excitement across the country.
For three long months this fantastic find had been kept under wraps by the DWC as there is a strong need not only to safeguard and protect the endangered species that is Panthera pardus kotiya which is under major threat, but also this black beauty.
In the past, to the country’s horror black leopards have been found killed in Kalawana, Sinharaja and Deniyaya. This black leopard is living with four others, a leopardess, two cubs and another male, of the usual colour (which varies from straw to bright golden, spotted with black spots and rosettes), the DWC’s Veterinary Surgeon Dr. Malaka Abeywardana who is working at the Elephant Transit Home (Ath Athuru Sevana) at Uda Walawe told the Sunday Times.
He and Veterinary Surgeon Dr. Manoj Akalanka who was earlier based in Uda Walawe but is now posted to the Central Wildlife Region had launched a research study on leopards about two years ago as no island-wide survey has been carried out in Sri Lanka.
“As we proceeded step-by-step many people including wildlife officers and villagers kept referring to black leopards mostly from the Sinharaja Rainforest and in the Deltota area of Kandy,” said Dr. Abeywardana, describing how they installed remote-sensing camera traps in eight places to ‘catch’ any leopards passing by.
It was when looking at the footage of some of the camera traps in the Central Highlands around Adam’s Peak about three months ago that they stumbled upon this find.
“We were searching for black leopards and it was a big chance that we found one,” says an overjoyed Dr. Abeywardana, explaining that it is an adult over five years old. The two cubs are about three months old. Usually, leopards are territorial creatures and maybe the other leopard is a close kin of the black one.
Referring to this feature, Dr. Abeywardana says it is all to do with melanism and a recessive gene.
He adds that the DWC is thrilled over stumbling upon this black leopard and would work very hard to safeguard it.