Man versus wild

With increased human activity in forests, man-animal conflicts have also gone up

I find that whenever experts bemoan our shrinking forest cover and depleting biodiversity, there is a tendency to focus on national parks and tiger reserves. However, travelling in Uttar Pradesh, much of which was densely forested merely decades ago, I’ve found that the prognosis for lesser-known wild areas is way more alarming. Poaching, deforestation, quarrying and human encroachments have caused these areas to decline precipitously. For example, last month, I was in Drammandganj forest range in Mirzapur. Locals recall that even 20 years ago, this used to be a lush jungle teeming with sloth bear, leopard, wild boar and several species of deer. The occasional big cat would stray in from the central Indian jungles which Drammandganj range connected to. With increased human activity many of these corridors have long gone. So when I had the chance to go with a zoologist from Banaras Hindu University to see if there had been recent cases of man-animal conflict, I jumped at it.

Paddy fields stretched right up to Drammandganj’s hilly jungles. In one of these fields, we met a landless labourer, Chandrashekhar. One morning, when he was setting off to work, he heard an outcry that a leopard had entered the village. A crowd of villagers had gathered just ahead, wielding sticks and making loud noises to scare the wild animal. Chandrashekhar rushed towards them to see what was happening. “From the corner of my eye, I saw a streak of gold...” he recalled. The next thing he felt was the weight of the leopard on his body. The frightened animal took a huge swipe out of his shoulder, attacked four other villagers and then found itself trapped in a store room. The forest department had it removed eventually, and no one knows what happened to the leopard after that. 

The incident had happened in the summer of 2014, and villagers surmised that the animal had strayed so close to their homes because all the water sources in the forest had dried up. They’ve seen no evidence of leopards ever since. In fact, other than the occasional depredation by herds of Blue Bull, there have been no other cases of man-animal conflict here after this. Meanwhile, Chandrashekhar, who had suffered deep gashes on his chest, shoulder and right arm, took two years to recover — that too only partially. The forest department has not provided the compensation he was entitled to. He still can’t lift heavy objects and has not been able to get proper work since. “Why would anyone hire a labourer who’s right arm is maimed?” he asked wryly. His illiterate wife and elder daughter have been forced to work, also as labourers, to make ends meet. 

Chandrashekhar hasn’t recovered from the trauma mentally either. “I can’t forget the cascades of blood from my shoulder,” he said. The family’s struggle to pay his medical bills has been equally traumatic. “We are happy that the jungles have become safe for us,” he said. “Thankfully, all the animals have disappeared from it”.

We walked away and Chandrashekhar and his family returned to work in the fields. I mused that in the conflict between man and wild, Chandrashekhar and the leopard had both been innocent victims. One had lost its habitat, the other, his livelihood and well-being. For the life of me, I couldn’t see who the victor was.