Mangaluru: The forest officials captured a leopard that had strayed into the kitchen of a house at Akkasaligara Keri in Mulki in the early hours of Sunday.
Following the complaints from residents on the presence of the leopard, the department officials had kept cages at various locations in Mulki.
Deputy RFO Manjunath Ganiga said that locals reported sightings of a leopard in the area, prompting the forest department to place a cage about a kilometre away from the house. The leopard entered the house at around 10 pm, making its way into the kitchen.
On noticing it, the family locked the kitchen door and alerted the forest department. With the help of a cage and a net, the leopard was trapped at around 2.45 am. After the medical examination, the leopard was released into the wild.
Locals suspect that there are three leopards in the vicinity.
The operation to capture the leopard was led by RFO Kiran Kumar, with the help of deputy RFOs Nagesh Billava, Manjunath Ganiga and forest department staff members Chandrashekar and Shankar.