No let up in leopard attacks as 1 more injured in Anantnag

Anantnag, Sep 26: On Wednesday morning, Nazir Ahmad Naikoo, 40, was working in his agricultural field in the Wai-Bemdoora village of south Kashmir’s Kokernag when a leopard suddenly appeared. Naikoo raised an alarm and ran away, but the leopard pounced on him and injured him.

Locals working in the paddy fields rushed to the spot and managed to save Naikoo. He was evacuated to the sub-district hospital in Dooru for treatment, where his condition is now reported to be stable.

Wildlife authorities have dispatched a team to track and capture the leopard.

Naikoo is not the only one to have borne the brunt of attacks by wild animals. In fact, this is the second such attack in South Kashmir this month. Earlier, on September 11, a 4-year-old was killed in a leopard attack in the Gulshanpora area of Tral in Pulwama district. The leopard was later captured alive by wildlife authorities.

In April of this year, a leopard went on a rampage in the Khansahib area of Budgam district, killing two minor girls. In the same month, four people, including a minor, were injured in leopard attacks at different locations in Shopian district.

Amid the rising incidents of human-animal conflict, wildlife authorities have issued an advisory warning people against moving near forest areas alone, particularly during morning and evening hours. The advisory also calls for avoiding the dumping of kitchen waste near houses and buildings and for the construction of concrete “leopard-proof” cattle sheds.

Kashmir has witnessed an increase in cases of human-animal conflict in recent times, with experts blaming human interference in wildlife habitats as the main reason for these incidents.

“Human-wildlife conflict has escalated significantly in recent years in Jammu and Kashmir,” a wildlife official stated. He noted that the primary cause of this conflict is human encroachment into wildlife habitats.

Suhail Intesar, wildlife warden at the Department of Wildlife Protection, attributes rapid land-use change as one of the prime reasons for human-wildlife conflict in Kashmir.

“Paddy, the main agricultural crop, has given way to horticultural cash crops. Orchards start where our forests end, and over time we have lost the barren buffer that once existed between forests and croplands,” Intesar explained.

He added that the orchards, coupled with dense foliage, provide readily available and high-quality food to bears, which is often unavailable in their natural habitats, making humans more vulnerable to bear attacks.

Intesar also cited the increasing stray canine population as another reason for the conflict.

“Due to improper disposal of kitchen waste, dogs living in close proximity to humans attract leopards, increasing the chances of encounters between leopards and humans,” he said.