Two men have been arrested in Wanathawilluwa, on the western edge of the Wilpattu National Park buffer zone, for possessing a leopard skin and unlicensed firearms inside a house on a coconut estate, Ada Derana reported on Sunday.
Officers attached to the Department of Wildlife Conservation’s Wanathawilluwa sub-office made the arrests on May 17. Wildlife officers seized a leopard skin, an unlicensed 12-bore firearm of foreign manufacture, an unlicensed locally manufactured 12-bore firearm, five live cartridges and four empty cartridge casings from the suspects’ possession.
The two are scheduled to be produced before the Puttalam Magistrate’s Court.
Wanathawilluwa adjoins the Wilpattu protected area, where leopard density is among the highest in Sri Lanka and where wildlife officers have repeatedly intercepted poaching attempts. Earlier this month, the Special Task Force arrested suspects engaged in poaching inside Yala Block Two, and a separate Puttalam-area raid in early May uncovered a protected-species trophy and unlicensed ammunition at a former senior police officer’s premises.
