The leopard hiding in the basement of a Mulund school on Sunday walked into the trap set up by the rescue team.
The animal has strayed into the NES International School on Saturday morning.
“Around 5am, the hungry leopard walked into the trap in which the rescue team had kept a chicken. He will be kept under observation until evening and then released into the forest,” said Sunil Limaye, director of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP).
The school is about 300 metres from the national park boundary.
Since the leopard strayed into its basement, there have been people crowding the school.
A rescue team of a veterinarian and four forest officials laid the trap to lure the leopard out of the school’s basement. The trap was a large cage filled with dense bushes and a chicken placed inside to lure the hiding leopard into the cage.
Limaye said the animal might have strayed from his territory in search of easy prey such as stray dogs or pigs instead of its usual feed of deer because of the heat which has made hunting difficult.
More than 20 leopards are estimated to be living inside the SGNP. The number was more than 35 about 10 years ago but the number has dipped since then.
