Bhanu Municipality in Tanahun has seen four children mauled to death by leopards within a year and a half. The terror is widespread among the municipality denizens. In the wake of the attacks, Tanahun’s Division Forest Office had adopted various measures to curb leopard attacks and ensure safety to its residents, but to no avail. After many trial-and-error attempts to trap leopards with modern measures failed, the Office has now gotten back to the traditional method.

“After the new methods proved fruitless, we have gone back to preparing traditional wooden cages,” said Kedar Baral, forest officer at the Office. 

The wooden traps are being set up in wards 2 and 3, the areas that are the most affected by leopard attacks, said Dal Narayan Shrestha, chief of Ward No. 3. “We are ready to experiment with the traditional method,” Shrestha said. According to Shrestha, the traditional method lures leopards into cages by placing cattle, either a dog or a goat, inside the wooden enclosure.

The traditional cages cost a hundred thousand each.

The construction of the cages in ward No. 2 is in the final rounds, said Arjun Bahadur KC, the ward chief. The cages will be set up in various places of the ward’s community forests. “We hope the cages will serve their purpose,” KC said.

In February 2018, four children from wards 2 and 3 were attacked to death by leopards.

“The traps are being set up to ensure that no such incident will repeat in the wards,” KC said.