In search of a man-hunting leopard, leopards in the North West Frontier Province in Pakistan are being indiscriminately killed: a case of shoot first, questions later. So far some 4 leopards have been shot dead, and upon autopsy declared not the culprits. This is an insane way to eliminate a dangerous animal; by leaving behind a trail of carcasses of an already endangered species.
The common leopard in Pakistan is fast losing its habitat and prey species. This may well be the reason for these desperate acts as this is the first instance of the cat turning man-eater. Construction of new projects in the hills is making the situation even worse.
What is actually needed in response to this crisis is a long term solution, which involves the locals and preserves the interests of both the humans as well as the resident wildlife. In other parts of the world, a wide range of methods are used to mitigate human-wildlife conflicts like this one. In Pakistan, on the other hand, the provincial environment department is actually considering a wildlife directorate proposal to introduce leopard trophy hunting in the NWFP.
Please write polite letters to Dr. Mohammad Mumtaz Malik, Conservator of Wildlife, NWFP Wildlife Department, and urge him to find solutions that will lead to mutually beneficial coexistence of humans and wildlife.
It is imperative that all correspondence be courteous; otherwise, our campaign will suffer.
NWFP Wildlife Department:
Dr. Mohammad Mumtaz Malik
Conservator of Wildlife
NWFP Wildlife Department
Shami Road
Peshawar, Pakistan
Fax: +92-91-9212090
Please also send your letters to editors of leading newspapers in Pakistan.
DAWN
letters@dawn.com
The News
news.post@thenews.com.pk
Daily Times
letters@dailytimes.com.pk
All letters should include the writer’s full name, postal address, e-mail address, and in the case of Pakistan, a day-time telephone number.
Note: Be sure to let us know if a publication prints your letter(s) so we can share your success with other writers.
Thank you for all your efforts in behalf of animals!
The leopard shot dead in Abbotabad should not be killed…It could be caught alive by shooting him with some tranquilizer…Its a total and crueal loss of a beautiful animal…
This is realy pathetic and stupid to shot him dead when you could have caught it alive…
there is definatly a need of protation of that animal spece . what we want to do what we have done with tiger of ior country a sub specey of sindh tiger .
that is tahe only living big cat which is in a reasionalble numbers throw out asia and african dont do this to them protectr them