Bears on the golf course!

Imagine bear cubs playing with each other on a golf course! Well this is not an imagination but reality. Recently a clip showing two bear cubs walking on a fairway while some golfers walk without any fear in the sprawling Royal Springs Golf Course (RSGC) on the banks of Dal Lake

went viral.
The clip raises a question whether wild animals have infiltrated into human habitations or humans encroached upon their natural habitat? Though the clip shows harmonious relationship between wildlife and humans in the city, the situation in rural areas of Kashmir is serious on this front. Incidents of human-animal conflict are on a rise in the countryside with both sides bearing the brunt.

Royal Springs Golf Course was carved out of the Salim Ali National Park popularly known as City Forest National Park. The park on the foothills of Zabarwan mountain was home to several wildlife species including critically endangered Hangul, Black Bears, Leopards besides 70 species of birds.  However, in 1998, the then government decided to convert the National Park into a golf

course.
Axes and bulldozers swung into action razing to ground trees and levelling slopes. Government utilised the expertise of Robert Trent Jones Jr, a well-known American golf course designer, for designing the golf course. Finally, the Royal Springs Golf Course was commissioned in 2001, but

wild animals got displaced!
The 300-acre golf course comprising greens, rolling hills, forest, ponds, wilderness, marsh, is billed as one of the biggest golf courses in Asia. Many national and international golf tournaments have been organised at RSGC. It is laced with state-of-the-art facilities for golfers including restaurant, clubhouse, rest rooms and pro shop. J&K government has been projecting Kashmir as

“golfers’ paradise” due to the splendour of RSGC.
A favourite haunt of national and international golfers, RSGC has been receiving uninvited guests— bears. The wild cat has been foraying into the golf course which was their erstwhile motherland! To prevent entry of bears and other wild animals into RSGC, several measures including electric fencing were undertaken. However, bears crossing all barriers continue to infiltrate into the golf course.

Studies show that wild animals don’t forget their natural habitat. Wild animals have been bearing the brunt of vandalisation of forests. Their movement has been severely affected by the closure of their traditional corridors in upper reaches of Kashmir. Due to haphazard constructions and increasing human activities in and around forests, wild animals are foraying into plains in search of

food. This triggers human-animal conflict.
During the last few years, movement of bears and leopards is on rise in densely populated areas of Srinagar including Nishat, Gupkar, Brein and off-late localities around Old Airfield at Rangreth. Setting up poultry and sheep farms in the vicinity of forests attracts wild animals. Conversion of paddy fields into orchards attracts bears to eat fresh fruits.

Lack of solid waste management in areas close to forests is also turning into an attraction for wild animals. As per a study by Wildlife SOS, 75 percent of the diet of bears who frequent human garbage dumps included plastic, chocolates and organic food waste. During the study bears were tagged with GPS radio-collars to know their habitat, foraging behaviour, its availability and identify specific causative factors leading to human brown-bear conflicts in famous tourist resort Sonamarg.

In the last two decades, reportedly 250 people were killed and over 3000 were injured in human-animal conflicts in J&K. Leopards and bears have been attacking mostly kids and elderly persons due to their fragility. In 2021, the Wildlife authorities declared a leopard as man eater after it mauled a four year old girl to death at Ompora area of Budgam district. The incident led to public outcry with locals blaming outgrowing of vegetation in nurseries where leopards take refuge.
Budgam and Baramulla districts have been witnessing an increasing number of human-animal conflict cases.

There is a long blood trail. Five minors, living near forests, were killed by wild animals in Baramulla district in 2022. Leopards too had to face the ire of people for entering into their territory. Earlier this year, two leopards were brutally poached by snare’s strangulation at a Balandh village in Udhampur district of Jammu.  On April 3, 2020, a leopard was killed in a village of south Kashmir’s Kulgam district after it attacked and injured several of them.

Last year two leopards were killed in a village in Bijbehara area of south Kashmir’s Anantnag district and Nichama village of Handwara in north Kashmir after these were declared man-eaters. Both these leopards were suspected to have killed two minors. A mob had killed and burnt a wild bear in Tral area of Pulwama district on November 18, 2006.

Something is wrong somewhere. Why are wild animals forced to foray in human habitations?  Government and stakeholders need to identify causes and take measures to minimise human-animal conflict.

The Department of Wildlife Protection is grappling with a shortage of staff and they can’t reach and address human-animal conflict cases in far-flung cases. There is a need to organise training and awareness programmes at village level to avoid and tackle human-animal conflict cases. We have seen how people turn into mobs when wild animals enter their villages.
As humans, it is our responsibility to give space to wild animals to live. We have to take the initiative to end the conflict with wild animals and help to maintain ecological balance and importantly harmony with all creations and creatures!

Arif Shafi Wani is Executive Editor, Greater Kashmir