One of the female leopards at Rasikbeel. Picture by Main Uddin Chisti

Cooch Behar, April 6: Shankar, a male leopard from the Rasikbeel Rescue Centre, has paid for his virility by being transferred to Padmaja Naidu Zoological Park in Darjeeling, while his place has gone to a neutered big cat from the hill zoo.

The reason: the rescue centre does not have permission for captive breeding from the Central Zoo Authority. This did not stop Shankar from helping its two female companions, Gauri and Kali, add four cubs to Rasikbeel’s leopard population in the past two years.

“We have swapped the two male leopards solely to prevent any breeding from taking place at Rasikbeel,” said Apurba Sen, the divisional forest officer (social forestry).

Gauri and Kali will now have the company of Raja, a sterilised leopard.

The popular tourist destination of Rasikbeel, about 35km from here, draws thousands of visitors and picnickers from the district and elsewhere. Tourists, both domestic and foreign, often stay at the forest lodges there.

The three adult leopards and their four cubs are the main attraction of the rescue centre, which also has spotted deer, gharials, snakes and strutting peafowl.

“We shifted Shankar and replaced him with Raja on the evening of March 4. Many visitors who come here regularly are still not aware of the switch,” Sen said.

According to forest department sources, the leopard rescue centre was opened at Rasikbeel in 2005. Gauri and Kali were the first leopards rescued from the forests of north Bengal to be kept there.

In 2006, Shankar was introduced and soon both the females got pregnant and had two cubs each. There are three females and one male among the litter.

The births were a cause of embarrassment to the Bengal forest department, which did not have permission from the Central Zoo Authority to carry out captive breeding of wild animals at Rasikbeel.

“Six months ago, when the cubs were born, it was decided that no more breeding would be allowed to take place. We will also segregate the cubs just before they attain maturity,” said state forest minister Ananta Roy.

The minister added that at first it was decided that Shankar would be neutered. “However, as we have no infrastructure to carry out veterinary surgeries at Rasikbeel, we decided to relocate the male leopard and replace it with an already-sterilised one,” Roy said.