This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine.
In the afternoon of February 22, 67-year-old Bulal Maharjan, a farmer living on the outskirts of Kathmandu, Nepal, was sitting on his porch chopping cauliflower leaves to feed his chickens. Hearing a loud thud as a parked motorcycle toppled, he turned and watched in horror as a leopard leapt away from the fallen vehicle and lunged at him, piercing its sharp canines into his forehead, its claws lacerating his hands.
Within seconds, neighbors swarmed in, and the leopard ran into a nearby house. They eventually trapped the animal inside. After nearly two hours of panic that saw two more people injured trying to control the distressed big cat, forest division officials managed to sedate it and bring the situation under control.
Maharjan still can’t shake off memories of the attack. “For three days straight, I couldn’t even sleep. Every time I began to doze, the scene of this attack would jolt me up!” he says. “I think we should just get rid of this animal. Period.”
Bulal Maharjan, 67, narrowly escaped a harrowing encounter with a common leopard outside his home on the outskirts of Kathmandu.
