An incident of leopard poaching came to light when forest officials seized a screened skin of the animal and a gun from an abandoned house in Dutia Sahi village under Patrapur forest range in Odisha's Ganjam district, officials said.
The skin seized was 18 cm in length and 54cm in width, Divisional forest officer (DFO) Berhampur, SS Mishra said.
No one was arrested in this connection, the DFO said, adding that forest department officials were conducting raids at different places near the village and the hunters would be nabbed soon.
Acting on a tip-off, forest officials raided the house on Wednesday where the leopard skin, at least six nails of the big cat and a country-made gun were seized, forest ranger, Patrapur RK Rout said.
They suspected the wild animal might have be killed in the nearby Singhraj jungles, where they located it.
"During the last tiger census, we had got the sign of a leopard roaming the jungle," he said.
There might be some leopards living in the jungle spread in about 50-km radius covering Andhra Pradesh and Gajapati districts. But this was first time that they had detected hunting of a leopard in the area in recent years, he stated.
