Bear on prowl, gives sleepless nights to Narkanda villagers
SHIMLA: Bear menace is giving a tough time to the residents of Kotgarh, a village in Narkanda tehsil of Shimla, these days.
In the last ten days, a bear on the prowl has injured three people including a woman.
The injured, includes two Nepalese labourers, who were attacked in the evening hours when they were on their way to home from the orchards, while a lady was attacked in Jarol panchayat on Thursday.
Pradhan of Jarol gram panchayat Susheela Shyam said that they have urged the administration to take necessary steps to control the situation soon.
However, the state forest department so far has been helpless in tackling the bear menace.
Kotgarh divisional forest officer (DFO) HK Gupta confirmed the reports of bear in the area. “Some cases of bear attack have come to our notice. We will rope in experts to deal with this issue because catching a bear is a tedious task,” he said.
“Bear cannot be caged like leopard, it can be controlled by shooting through a tranquillising gun, for which the forest department needs to deploy professional shooters,” said Rishi Bhalaik, an apple farmer and a retired forest official.
Villagers allege that they have earlier also alerted the forest department but no efforts were made to deal with the issue.
In November last year, bears on prowl had given tough time to people in some of the villages in Chamba district.
Last year, prowling bear had also damaged cherry trees in some parts of Kotgarh.
That time the forest department had suggested locals to beat drums to keep the wild animals away from the farms.
Residents of Kotgarh, a major apple producing belt, have to face this problem several times in a year as the area is located near forest and also has many orchards around.
Since higher reaches of the region are covered with snow, bears usually come to the human habituated areas in search of food and event resort to attack locals.