dna special: 'Beary' easy solution to reduce man-bear conflict

Man-animal conflicts are common. The wild animals have been facing degradation of habitats which often leads to conflicts.

In an effort to reduce it, a recent study on human-bear conflict suggests that growing of more food species plants preferred by bears in and around the sloth bear sanctuary in Jessore and other areas could be crucial in bringing down instances of such a conflict in the region.

It may be noted that since 2008, the number of man-animal conflict went down significantly in Gujarat but there has been a marginal rise in last two years. However, the overall instances of conflict remain less than what it was in 2008 when the state reported at least 35 instances of sloth bear attacks. It came down to 24 in 2012.

A paper, ‘Feeding ecology and habitat use of sloth bear in Jassore wildlife sanctuary Gujarat’, published in the Indian Journal of Ecology, gives a simple but important recommendation.

Written by Darshan Sukhadiya, JV Joshil and Nishith Dharaiya of the department of life science, Hemchandracharya North Gujarat University, it states that the findings about the food composition of sloth bear and its seasonal variation may be helpful in understanding the requirements. “Survival of sloth bear depends on availability of suitable habitat along boulder and rocky outcrops in forest areas. People invade forests, resulting in increasing competition and confrontation. Although the sanctuary has reported the highest bear population, the optimum habitat that can support such a large population is completely lacking,” says the study.

Dr Dharaiya, co chair of IUCN sloth bear expert team, said bear visits human settlements frequently especially for water and food in summer while the locals visit the forest for collection of forest products for their livelihood. “Moreover, these areas are not declared as protected areas except Jassore and Balaram Ambaji, where we get very few attacks while in unprotected forests of Sabarkantha and central Gujarat the cases are more,” said Dharaiya. He said the main reason for attack is accidental confrontation of bears and humans. “They share common resources like honey, fruits, Mahua flowers, etc as food of sloth bear and as livelihood collection by villagers. Another reason is villagers going for early morning defecation in the open. Many locals also live near the forest boundary and the movement of bears in the forest and peoples' visit to the area coincides leading to confrontation,” he said.

He said routine plantation programmes of the forest department are conducted in these areas and if such plantations are made on the forest fringes and of plant species that are preferred by sloth bear their movement can be restricted considerably.

Other steps that can be taken include spreading awareness among the locals. “Regular monitoring of bear movement and feeding pattern by forest field staff and declaring the unprotected forest patches as an eco-sensitive zones/critical bear habitats etc and regulating people’s movements during particular time of the day can also help,” he said.

Number of Bear attacks

2008 - 35

2009 - 15

2010 - 19

2011 - 29

2012 - 24