A Wildlife Parliament - to mitigate Human Wildlife Conflict; This Earth Day ...
By Malini
Shankar
Here’s another Earth Day. Another day to pay
lip service to the environmental cause. But the real issues stare at us without
recourse to solutions. Human wildlife conflict remains at the centre of
environmental challenges facing conservation administrative challenges and
politically expedient indecisiveness sustains the conflict instead of solving
it.
Meet Bobby Chand alias Bobby Bhai of Nainital
district in Uttarakhand a survivor of a Conflict Tiger attack; Bobby survived a
tiger attack in Panod Nalla range (29°30'27.22"N, 79° 6'48.59"E) of
Corbett Tiger Reserve on 17th June 2022 at around noon. He barely
survived the attack. As Bobby sat in front of the (under-construction) bridge
he was not aware of the nursing tigress who was possibly shifting her cubs
behind the half constructed bridge in the thick tropical evergreen forests just
beyond. Forest officials at that time said Bobby was in drunken stupor at that
point which was what triggered the attack.
After the tiger attack, he had the alacrity to
fight the tigress and scare it away, - God he needed to - to survive a near
fatal attack on his life - although he was barely alive, himself. Profusely
bleeding, he limped, utterly terrorized, yet disoriented, to a nearby resort in
Ramnagar about 5 kilometres through thick forest terrain on the edge of the
state highway from where the forest staff (who were informed) arrived and took
him to the Ramnagar District General Hospital for first aid. Later he was taken
to Apollo Hospital in New Delhi where two NGOs underwrote the bills for his
treatment. The attack left his left lung punctured leaving him breathless to do
hard manual labour.
The Deputy Field Director of Corbett Tiger
Reserve Mr. Amit Gwasikoti says “Mr. Bobby Chandra, a worker in the Sarpduli
Range of Corbett Tiger Reserve, was attacked by a tiger in June 2022. He was
immediately taken by the Forest Department to Ramnagar hospital, then referred
to Kashipur, and later to Apollo Hospital, New Delhi for advanced treatment. He
has received ₹ 50k as compensation as per human wildlife conflict policy. Due
to severe injuries and reduced physical capability, he has been retained in the
department and assigned a role involving minimal physical work”… where he works as a wireless operator.
“As a
daily wager in the forest department wireless office I earn Rs. 11000 per month
(€100.01, / $
117.74) a meagre pay to maintain my wife, two children, four sisters and my parents.
I have been working as a daily wager in the forest department nursery since
2018 but despite the trauma I have suffered, I have not been given permanent
employment. Atleast I am living an honourable life … despite such debilitating handicap
and miserly income I have not indulged in poaching. Despite the grievous
injuries I suffered at the hands of the tigress and the scars it has left on my
emotions and mental health, I harbour no hatred against the tiger and other
wildlife”. This tigress has attacked more than eight persons in and around this
Panod Nalla range, it has not been caught. I am educated and have an Under-Graduation
Degree, am I not eligible for a Government job given my hapless fate Madam?” He
asks me desperately.
Bobby was engaged by the village Panchayat as a
daily wage earner for the construction of a bridge across the Rāmgangā River
that cleaves Corbett Tiger Reserve into two – when he was travelling from
Dhangarhi to Haldwani he was attacked by a nursing tigress on the road side
near Sultan Chowki, Panod Nalla about five kilometres north of Ramnagar town’s
northern edge, right next to the state highway very close to the bridge under
construction.
When I visited the spot for a documentary recce
to take pictures, a motorist on the road stopped dead in his tracks, looked at
me and my driver and told me to hurry up and scoot from the spot without any
further delay as there is a man eating tiger / tigress on the prowl right at
the spot where I was standing. Such is the terror a conflict tiger creates in
the neighbourhood that surrounding villagers avoid travelling on the state
highway after Sunset. This fear maybe irrational, given that Bobby Bhai was
attacked in the middle of the day.
Despite all the theory that Jim Corbett or Kenneth Anderson would propagate were they alive today to capture the conflict tigress alive, putting those theories of wait and watch are utterly impractical say forest officials. One such precept involves locating the mortal remains of the victim in the thick jungles and waiting in a hide to await the return of the huntress to the carcass. The animal that comes to claim its trophy must then be marked and killed no matter what light there is or what state of decomposition the carcass is in or how good the marksman is. The huntress must be killed in one single shot. Lest the injured beast can account for a lot more of conflict victims. The man eater of Rudraprayag claimed 123 scalps in her reign of terror, documented by Jim Corbett in the book The Man-eater of Rudraprayag.
In this case Bobby is fortunately alive. So
hunting the alleged huntress is doubly so challenging.
 |
| Late Hanumantha Nayaka's cadavour in Bandipur. Notice the huge paw marks on the left shoulder of both victims. Photo credit: Special Arrangement. |
Says he “I was mauled; and barely survived the attack. We were two persons riding a scooter through the forests on the state highway and we sat down near the bridge that was being constructed to drink water from the river.
According to Bobby Chandra the alleged man
eating tigress has mauled more than just him… “atleast 8- 10 survivors are
living in fear in an around Dhangarhi”. Dy FD of Corbett Tiger Reserve Gwasikoti
says “Yes... And with efforts of forest
department it was finally rescued”… meaning it is now caged in a zoo or rescue
centre.
Hanumantha Nayaka of Melkamnahalli on
the forest fringes of Bandipur Tiger Reserve in Karnataka went to collect
firewood straight into the den of a nursing tigress in the Bandipur Tiger Reserve
in southern Karnataka on the 10th of March 2010. While forest
officials opined that he was possibly trying to poach the tiger cubs, others
from his native village said he only went to collect firewood. The question why
did he go eight kilometres deep into core forest area to collect firewood
remained unanswered. Nonetheless the tigress denied dignity in death to poor
Hanumantha Nayaka who was wholly dismembered
by the angry and threatened tigress.
16 year old Lalitha Naik of Kumarwada village
in Joida Taluk of Uttar Kannada district in Karnataka was grazing her cattle
when she unknowingly brushed past a shrub in the thick forests where a sloth
bear was nursing her cubs. Disturbed to the point of inflection the mother cub
chased her almost vindictively, hit her black and blue, in the process sticking
its talons into her mouth and ripping her jaw apart. Getting first aid for a
profusely bleeding Lalitha involved her brother running a half marathon in
jungle terrain only to bring an ambassador car across rock strewn streams and
panicky herds of Spotted Deer to the location where she lay bleeding. After picking her up they had to proceed
cautiously in the same jungle tracks for about 10 kilometres to reach the Gund
Road. From there it was 45 kilometres to Dr. Hiremutt Clinic in Dandeli town.
After first aid there she was taken to Goa Medical college Hospital in Panaji
the neighbouring state capital which is so much nearer than the best government
hospital in her own home state of Karnataka. Her dislocated jaw and fractured
collar bones were treated in Goa Medical College Hospital and she was in-patient
for a whole Quarter. She was asked to go home after critical care without a discharge
summary because her family had no money to pay for her treatment and critical
care. Without the discharge summary she
was not eligible for compensation through any state agency. She remains
physically challenged, suffers immense bone and joint pain, cannot chew her
food properly and the emotional scars are hidden by the physical scars on her
face…
There are atleast six to eight survivors of
bear attacks in and around Dandeli Tiger Reserve that I myself am aware of…
22 year old Ajay Kallu of Bakultala village in
Northern Andamans was the 5th victim of crocodile attacks in the
Andaman Nicobar Islands in 2012…
In the Sundarbans Tiger Reserve every human
settlement / village has a survivor’s story to narrate … stories of attack by
tigers, crocodiles, fresh water sharks, leopards, even bees.
The centre-stage of Human Wildlife conflict is
occupied by survivors of elephant attacks, crocodile attacks, snake bite
victims, wolf attacks, bear attacks, but rear indeed are the instances of big
cat attacks like leopard or tiger.
Other shades of grey on the green horizon are
rabid dogs biting Gaur inside forests, spread of wildlife veterinary infections
across the human landscape, endangered wildlife like vultures risking death and
extinction thanks to painkillers and veterinary medicine for cattle, KFD
disease in Langur monkeys inside Protected Areas, among other reasons and
causes.
In October 2025, three human
mortalities were documented on the forest fringes of the Bandipur Tiger Reserve
in the southern state of Karnataka. The Karnataka Forest Department followed
policy guidelines to the T, gave compensation to the deceased’s families as per
policy guidelines; more critically, the forest department followed the
theoretical precepts advocated by Jim Corbett and Kenneth Anderson, waited and
watched for the return of the huntress / hunter where the cadavour was found,
set up camera traps for mark recapture, and undertook DNA sampling of tiger
scat (which modern technology facilitates) and the Karnataka Forest Department claims to have “captured the
errant tigress; those that were injured are housed in the rescue centre, the
cubs have been released into the Wild in their native habitat” according to
Kumar Pushkar, the Principal Chief Wildlife Warden of the Karnataka Forest Department.
Prescient indeed was the dissent note of late
Valmik Thapar to the Joining the Dots, Tiger task Force Report of 2005 of the Government
of India which “investigated and recommended solutions” to the Sariska
Slaughter of 22 tigers in the premier tiger reserve back in 2004 – 05.
Blaming strict nature reserves
and conservation laws where tigers have priority, for all the poverty and
inequity driven ills that plague our vast country is pointless polemics: These
ills are consequences of the failure of development, economics and politics of
the country and society as a whole and cannot be simple-mindedly blamed on
conservationists. This I am absolutely clear about”.
It surely does not make sense to
numerate cattle in tiger reserves or Protected Areas. These reserves are
protected for an endangered population – the Royal Bengal Tiger and its faunal
spectrum – as envisaged by Late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. If after eight decades of Independence India
has not been able to envisage a clear Land-Use Policy for Man and Beast it
bespeaks of an inability to comprehend anthropological priorities. Or perhaps
the tigers and its faunal spectrum need political representation and a vote in
a Wildlife Parliament?
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