Bengaluru: Forest Department personnel rescued a four-year-old leopardess from Madaga area in Athrady village near Hiriyadka, Udupi taluk, on Thursday.

The villagers of Athrady and nearby areas had been complaining for the past few days about leopard sightings and disappearance of dogs from the area, which they alleged were taken by the big cat. On Wednesday evening, forest officials placed a cage behind the house of Sudhakar Naik, one of the villagers.

The cage had two compartments, one big and one small. To attract the leopard, a dog was kept in the small compartment. Range Forest Officer Ramesh H. said the leopardess must have got trapped at night.

“We got a phone call from the locals around 6 a.m. today that the leopardess had been caught. Our personnel reached the village and then took the cage to the Section Forest Quarters at Hiriyadka,” he said.

A veterinarian visited the quarters and examined the leopardess. “The vet declared it fit and healthy. The leopardess is four years old,” he said. After consulting the senior officers of the Forest Department, the personnel of the Range Forest Office released the big cat in the Kudremukh National Park area.

“About 10 days ago, we rescued a leopard cub in a shrubby area in Hiriyadka. It was 15 days old and was sent to Pilikula Nisargadhama,” Mr. Ramesh said. “Leopard movement is common in areas with shrubs and bushes. They normally live in such areas on the edge of forests so that they can catch dogs,” he said.

As another leopard sighting was reported in a nearby area, the Forest Department has kept a cage close to a plantation near the Hiriyadka Junior College.

Over the last month, a leopard each had been sighted in areas close to End Point and Shivally Industrial Area in Manipal, and in an area close to Parkala.

“This is because there are shrubs and it is a semi-forest area nearby. We will have to use a different strategy to trap these cats because they probably recognise our cage, which we had used to entice them earlier in May,” Mr. Ramesh said.