A string of animal attacks across India’s safari parks is beginning to look like a pattern.
A 56-year-old woman was clawed by a leopard during a safari at Bannerghatta Biological Park on Thursday, prompting officials to shut down all non–air-conditioned safari buses.
The woman, Vahitha Banu, suffered minor injuries and was rushed to a nearby hospital. Another tourist captured the moment on a phone camera. Once posted online, the video sparked concerns about safety inside the park.
Calls for closing the leopard safari followed.
It was the second such incident in the park’s leopard zone in recent months. In August 2025, a boy had been injured there under similar circumstances.
Eyewitnesses said Thursday’s bus had stopped for too long in front of the enclosure. Leopards gathered. They sat still. Then one began prowling around the vehicle. It climbed up, they said, and swiped, scratching the woman’s hand and pulling down her veil.
But the park has seen worse.
On August 15 last year, a leopard stood up against a safari jeep, leaned into the open window and attacked a 12-year-old boy, identified as Suhas. Video from that day showed the animal pushing itself into the vehicle as passengers screamed.
In footage shared by the AP, the leopard was later seen crouching on the ground next to the boy's vehicle before chasing the car and leaping at the window. The boy was left with deep gashes on the body.
“The leopard, while climbing up the bus, clawed the boy's hand, which was in an accessible place. He was given first aid and checked for further injuries,” Bannerghatta Biological Park executive director Surya Sen back in August had told the Associated Press, via People.
Suhas was rushed to a hospital and discharged the same day.
After that attack, Karnataka’s forest, ecology and environment minister, Eshwar B. Khandre, told the Deccan Herald that safari vehicles should be fitted with wire mesh on all windows to deter animals. He also called for safety warnings on all safari tickets.
Earlier this month, Karnataka shut down safari operations in Nagarahole and Bandipur as tiger attacks surged in the Mysuru region, killing farmers.
Minister Khandre ordered trekking to be suspended in human–wildlife conflict zones and directed all available forest staff to join the effort to capture the tiger responsible.
In January, a mother and daughter fell out of a jeep during a chaotic moment inside Kaziranga National Park in Assam. A video that later went viral showed a rhinoceros trailing their vehicle.
Three jeeps approached a bend. Two accelerated. The mother and girl slipped and fell. In the background, another rhino charged. A third jeep reversed to avoid escalating the encounter. The pair escaped injury and climbed back into their vehicle.
Last year, on June 20, an elephant named Lakshmi crushed a mahout to death at an illegally run elephant safari in Kerala after reacting to the use of a stick.
PETA India urged the state’s chief wildlife warden to move Lakshmi to a sanctuary and called for shutting all illegal safari parks. The group said elephants that attack humans are often beaten afterward, adding to their stress.
They cited multiple incidents like that of an elephant named Gouri attacking a Russian tourist at Jaipur’s Amer Fort in February, and another elephant at Blangad Bhagavathy Temple in Chavakkad which injured four people that same month.
In Gujarat’s Gir region, wildlife scientists have raised alarms about private land used for unregulated lion tourism.
A research cited by The Telegraph last year, found that since 2012, lion attacks on humans have remained steady at about 25 per year with the highest numbers in private plots where clandestine lion tourism thrives.
Land managers often use baiting to lure lions, researchers said. That practice diminishes the animals’ fear of humans, disrupts how young lions learn to hunt and inflates lion populations in confined areas.
Taken together, the incidents present a picture of a tourism sector struggling to keep pace with such unpredictable encounters.