{"id":106978,"date":"2020-09-25T15:28:45","date_gmt":"2020-09-25T22:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=106978"},"modified":"2020-09-25T15:28:45","modified_gmt":"2020-09-25T22:28:45","slug":"sri-lanka-arrests-three-accused-of-killing-leopard-for-asthma-cure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/09\/25\/sri-lanka-arrests-three-accused-of-killing-leopard-for-asthma-cure\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka arrests three accused of killing leopard for asthma cure"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy MailOnLine<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2020\/09\/25\/11\/wire-33612448-1601031544-930_634x422.jpg\" alt=\"There are believed to be fewer than 1,000 leopards in the wild in Sri Lanka, and harming the big cat is punishable by up to five years' jail\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lankan police on Friday arrested three people suspected of trapping and killing an endangered leopard and trying to sell its meat as a cure for asthma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The trio were detained after police raided their home following a tip-off that they had used a snare to catch the creature in the central highlands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;They cut the head off and killed the animal after it got caught in the snare on Thursday,&#8221; chief inspector Dushantha Kangara told AFP by phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said the suspects had thrown the leopard&#8217;s head in the forest and removed the carcass to sell the animal&#8217;s skin, meat and other body parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Several leopards have been trapped by snares in the region, some 175 kilometres (110 miles) east of Colombo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kangara said there was a popular belief that leopard meat could cure asthma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Police seized 17 kilos (37 pounds) of leopard meat from the three suspects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are believed to be fewer than 1,000 leopards in the wild in Sri Lanka, and harming the big cat is punishable by up to five years&#8217; jail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wildlife conservationists have asked the authorities to ban snares and to prosecute those who use them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy MailOnLine Sri Lankan police on Friday arrested three people suspected of trapping and killing an endangered leopard and trying to sell its meat as a cure for asthma. The trio were detained after police raided their home following a tip-off that they had used a snare to catch the creature in the central highlands. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crimes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106978\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}