Kainaat Mushtaq
SRINAGAR, Nov 13: Angry villagers living near the foothills of Kashmir valley are up in arms against authorities. They are riled not by anything, but by the Wildlife Department’s failure to check the attacks by wild animals on human population and livestock in the area.
The man-animal conflict, that has killed scores of people, is on rise in Kashmir. The worst affected areas are near the LoC, a military control line that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
A fence has been put up along the LoC to prevent any infiltrators from crossing over from the other side. But it has also distrurbed the movement of wild bears and leopards in their habitat, which are now wandering into villages and killing people, wildlife experts say.
The animals were, until the fence was built, able to roam through forests in the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir.
But now they are unable to penetrate a heavily defended barrier built by army from 2003 to stem guerrilla activity linked to a separatist revolt.
“Fencing is one of the reasons that has restricted the trans-border movement of wild animals in the border areas of the state,” Mohammed Afzal, a wildlife expert said.
“If people stand divided due to the fence, then so do animals.”
Indian and Pakistani troops halted shelling across the frontier nearly a decade ago as part of peace moves. A three-metre (10-feet) high fence along the 742-km (460-mile) LoC, soon followed.
More than half a dozen people have been killed so far this year by wild animals and scores of others have been injured, wildlife officials say.
A 35-year-old man was the latest victim of the man-animal conflict when a leopard attacked him in the North Kashmir’s Uri area.
Leopard and Himalayan black bear populations increased after a ban on hunting was enforced in Kashmir in 1970. Moreover the loss of pine forests has also forced animals to come down to residential areas and often to attack them for food.
