A curious night-time incident between a dog and a leopard was captured on CCTV in the Mumbai suburb of Goregaon earlier this year. Footage was released on Youtube and Indian newspapers printed grainy snapshots of a dog chasing a leopard out of a housing complex.

The dog, a stray, soon became a hero among the building’s residents.

“We have three stray dogs in the building and residents often feed them. It was shocking to see this one giving a chase to a leopard. We hope none of them falls a prey to the leopard,” one was quoted as saying.

As the population of Mumbai, India’s commercial capital and largest city, continues to expand rapidly, its suburbs are straining against the boundaries of the Sanjay Gandhi national park, which is thought to be home to India’s highest concentration of leopards.

It is now estimated that over a million people are living around the borders of the SGNP. Population pressure makes encounters between leopards and humans inevitable.

[Read the rest of the article published by the Guardian here]