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An ocelot is fight­ing for sur­vival af­ter be­ing shot and left with se­vere spinal in­juries, in what of­fi­cials are de­scrib­ing as a se­ri­ous breach of the coun­try’s en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion laws.

The an­i­mal, now named Pa­paoutai, un­der­went emer­gency surgery af­ter X-rays re­vealed bal­lis­tic trau­ma to his spine.

While his con­di­tion re­mains crit­i­cal, vet­eri­nar­i­an Dr Kriyaan Singh, who has been car­ing for him since he was re­trieved from a forest­ed area, says there is cau­tious op­ti­mism.