India
Maneaters freely prowl for human flesh on Uttarakhand’s roadsides in the night
This how maneaters/ predators move openly on the roadside areas of entire Uttarakhand as seen in the above picture clicked by me from a facebook vedio of Gopal Rawat.
The tiger here is seen relaxing during the night hours on one of the roadside cemented structure looking for the human prey.
These are common scenes on the roads of the inner peripheries of Uttarakhand, particularly on the roads inside the forest areas after 8.00 PM in the night when you can witness these predators either on the roadside cemented structures ( puliyas) or in the middle of the lonely roads relaxing comfortably unless some vehicle comes and waits for these canivorous animals to slowly get up n go on the sides of the roads waiting for the vehicles to pass away.
But what is more surprising and worrisome aspect of these maneaters is that in some of the areas they even appear on roadsides during noon or just before sunset clandestinely looking for a lonely human prey like child, old aged or a woman.
In several cases these hungry leopards having tasted human blood and flesh exclusively look for prey in the road side houses and grab the children by even entering human habitats and thereafter taking them to the nearby jungles to eat.
There have been umpteen intances of such brutal killings of human beings during the past several months and years in the Garhwal and Kumaon divisions of Uttarakhand.
The forest department finds itself helpless as the courts have applied legal brakes on the killings of these predators. Moreover the department of wildlife does not possess enough equipments or know how to physically capture these maneaters except the primitive methods which are too tardy and ineffective.
Even for killing some of the highly dangerous maneaters it takes lot of time to seek the permission ofthe court and thereafter tardy killing process to hire professional and expensive shooters. By that time enough harm is already done to human lives.
As per the latest survey carried out by the Tiger count department about more than 400 tigers of different speices exists in the Uttarakhand Jungles that include majorly the Corbett and other national parks.
On an approximate estimate about 150 leopards/ tigers in Uttarakhand hills have been declared man eaters who’s from 2000 till now as per the current official estimate till May 2016 killed / eaten 300 human beings, though the figure in actuality still stands higher.
As per the news report of 23rd September 2016 leopards killed about 440 people in the Nepal and Kumaon areas after a prominent Shooter of the British era killed the maneater for the first time in 1907.
It is believed that about 40 to 50 maneaters have been killed so far in Uttarakhand after their human killing spree continued for several decades.
However, the maneater attacks in various parts of Uttarakhand have become a routine affair for these carnivorous animals as there seems to be dearth of animal preys inside the forests of Uttarakhand which have become the victim of excessive sound pollution, tourist activities, movement of vehicles, roads, commercial buildings, shops and hotels construcion of concrete houses and buildings including huge dams, tunnels and deforestation.
The increasing use of dynamites in road explosions and increasing natural calamities are also some of the prime reasons for imbalancing the wild life and their subsequent dissapearence from the forest ultimately resulting in the carnivorous animals to come towards human settlements and make them their easy prey. What’s your take friends?
Niharika Ghia
September 18, 2018 at 6:40 PM
Yes very true. Rightly pointed out Sunil Sir