Leopard attacks villagers; a day after tiger mauled a woman in India

New Delhi - A leopard strayed out of a reserved jungle sanctuary and injured several villagers in the Balasore district of the eastern Indian state of Orissa, media reports said Tuesday in increasing incidents of man-animal conflict due to shrinking space for animals.

The leopard had strayed out of the Kuldiha Wildlife Sanctuary in search of food. When the villagers raised an alarm and started throwing stones at it, it attacked some villagers, according to a forest official.

There was panic for hours as the villagers tried to scare away the leopard, till forest department officials reached the spot and caught the animal.

This is the second incident of man-animal conflict reported this month and the second this week.

A seven-foot tiger from the Sunderbans tiger reserve, home of the Royal Bengal tiger, had strayed into nearby Songaon village on Monday and where it mauled a woman before the animal was tranquilized by forest officials.

The tigress was found resting in a villager's hut by the forest officials. It had mauled a woman named Tarulata Mondal, who was feeding her chickens in front of her house, when the animal pounced and ripped her face and arms with its claws. She was later rushed to the nearby hospital.

“The tigress will be released in the core area of the reserve after a thorough examination within the next couple of days,” Director, Sunderban Biosphere Reserve, Pradeep Vyas, has been quoted as saying in the Hindu. Newspaper.

“Living in the Sunderbans means that one must be prepared for [a time] when the tiger may come, but in the last few years the frequency of such visits and the extent to which they stray into the villages has increased,” said Shankar Munda, who has seen tigers when he goes fishing in brooks in the forest area.

Just about a year ago, the same village had experienced an instance of straying, he added.

“In the Sunderbans, the fishermen and honey-gatherers have always been threatened by tiger attacks. But now, even those who do not venture into the forest are at threat,” Munda told the newspaper.

While continuous habitat destruction, shrinking prey base and a tendency to stray in the village areas during monsoon months are often cited as reasons for tigers straying, opinion is divided on the impact of cyclone Aila hit the area last year.

State's Principal Chief Conservator of Forests Atanu Raha said that some of the places where these attacks occurred after the cyclone were areas which witnessed the most damage during the cyclone.

More than 200 people were feared killed by Cyclone Aila which hit Bangladesh and the eastern Indian state of West Bengal last May. At least 500,000 others were also made homeless by the storm.

Early this month, the animal-man conflict was reported in two incidents that occurred in Corbett tiger reserve in north India when a woman being killed by a tiger and another of a leopard striking a group of three boys.

The incidents around Dhikuli led to a furious uprising of villagers who besieged forest officials demanding that the big cats be declared "adam khor'' or man-eaters and be destroyed.

The Corbett reserve, billed as one of the success stories to preserve tigers, has a tiger population of 164 out India's 1,411 animals. India holds over half the world's tiger population, according to the National Tiger Conservation Authority.

The report says the area has become a conflict zone with a teeming tiger population and the high volume of tourists at so-called resorts that offer weekend parties and birthday bashes instead of wildlife viewing.

But in recent years, massive commercialization has been posing an ecological and environmental threat and the attacks, which some say were waiting to happen, have highlighted the state government's failure to notify the park's buffer zone, as required under the Wildlife Protection Act.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/310770,leopard-attacks-villagers-a-day-after-tiger-mauled-a-woman.html.