Shabir Ali
Islamabad, Nov 02: With the increasing man-animal conflicts in the valley becoming a cause of grave concern, the wild life officials blame people and troops for disturbing the natural habitat of wild animals.
Wildlife Warden South Kashmir range, Mushtaq Ahmad Parsa attributes the increase in man-animal conflicts to the establishment of civilian and military settlements in the interiors of the forest land over the past few years.
“The encroachment of the forest land by the people and troops has completely disturbed the wild life habitat due to which the wild animals descend to human habitations in search of food," Parsa said.
He said the troops, besides, disturbing the wildlife habitat by chopping off the trees in the forests also attract leopards towards  human colonies by rearing dogs near the wild life protected areas.
"Leopards always hunt for soft food like dogs and children. The soldiers who have established camps in the forests always take sniffer dogs along during patrolling in forests. The leopards relish the sight of the dogs and when their attacks are thwarted by the soldiers, they descend to human habitations,” the wildlife warden said.
“Once the leopards devour humans they only become hungrier and turn into man-eaters," he added.
Parsa said they have started organizing awareness camps in the areas where there are frequent man-animal conflicts.
“During these camps we make people aware about the do's and dont's while confronting the beasts,” he said.
Wild life warden, Central Kashmir range, Rashid Naqash terms the encroachment of buffers and their conversion into agriculture and horticulture land as the reason for increase in man-animal conflicts.       
"The buffers which were main source of food for wild animals have been encroached and converted into farms for horticulture purposes. Instead of roaming in the forests in search of food, the beasts particularly black bears for easily available food prefer to be in the orchards which have come up either on forest land illegally or on the community land near the forests," Naqash said.
"Most of the man-animal conflicts take place in these orchards during the horticulture season. He said that after the fruit season is over the wild animals in their hunt for food rush towards the habitations posing threat to human lives,” he added.
Terming the situation as alarming, another wild life expert, wishing not to be named, said, "The increase in man-animal conflicts is a big challenge for the government. If the human intervention continues to disturb the wild life habitat, the situation will turn worse in next few years.”
He said the government should not act as a mute spectator but stop further disturbance of the wild life habitat.     
Pertinently, five persons including a woman were killed and 80 others injured in man-animal conflicts during last four months in South Kashmir only. Besides, two man-eater leopards and three black beers after causing damage to the humans were killed in various areas of the region during the last one month only.