Twenty-five leopards from Maharashtra have been relocated to Vantara, the wildlife rescue centre run by Reliance Foundation in Gujarat’s Jamnagar, PTI quoted state minister Ganesh Naik as saying in the state legislative council on Monday.
Naik added that the state government has signed an agreement with the Reliance Foundation to translocate 50 leopards to Vantara.
“We made a demand [to take the leopards] because 150 leopards were trapped in Pune district,” PTI quoted Naik as saying while speaking on the amendment of the Wildlife Protection Act as applied to Maharashtra.
On March 18, the Maharashtra Assembly approved the 2026 Wildlife Protection Maharashtra Amendment Bill seeking to introduce changes to the 1972 Wildlife Protection Act, the Hindustan Times reported.
The proposed amendment will empower the state government to capture and relocate leopards from one area to another, which otherwise requires approval from the Union government.
The bill was cleared by the council on Monday, PTI reported. It will only come into effect after receiving the president’s assent, as it proposes changes to a central law.
This came against the backdrop of repeated instances of man-animal conflict in Maharashtra amid a surge in the population of leopards. The minister said on Tuesday that the leopard population has gone up to 444 from 101 in the past seven to eight years, PTI reported.
In Pune district, a mass capture drive began in October after a five-year-old girl was killed in a leopard attack in Shirur taluka. In December, the Hindustan Times reported that the Junnar forest division had captured around 110 leopards, most of which were housed at the Manikdoh Leopard Rescue Centre. The centre was originally designed to accommodate only 45 leopards.
On Monday, Naik said that the Wildlife Protection Act amendment has been brought because the chief wildlife warden, in cases of human-leopard conflict, cannot take steps for population management or translocation of big cats under section 12 without permission from the Union government.
This highly regulated, cumbersome process is time-consuming and delays effective scientific management and translocation of leopards, as well as efforts to deal with human-leopard conflict in the state, PTI quoted Naik as saying.
The bill will enable the chief wildlife warden to take necessary steps for the scientific management of leopards, including translocation and population management, with the permission of the state government, he added.
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