Man vs. Beast: A Battle Without Borders

By Gowher Bhat

It starts with a scream. A child, a farmer, a woman gathering firewood. Somewhere on the edge of the forest, in a village where people live close to the wild. A black bear, a leopard. Someone doesn’t make it home.

In Kashmir, this is not a rare event. It happens often enough that people have learned to live with fear. Parents tell their kids to be home before dark. Farmers move in groups, always looking over their shoulders. A rustling in the leaves means something. A wrong turn in the orchard could be the last.

The numbers tell a story. Between 2006 and now, 264 people have died this way. 3,164 have been injured. Some mauled, some left with scars they will carry forever. These numbers, recorded by the wildlife department, don’t say everything. They don’t tell you about the father who never came back, the child who won’t go outside anymore, the mother who still wakes up screaming at night. These numbers don’t include the fear, the grief, the quiet funeral gatherings where no one knows what to say because everyone knows it will happen again.

Wild animals are coming closer. People are dying. But why?

Once, there was space for both—people and animals. There were forests that stretched far enough for leopards to hunt, for bears to find food. That space is disappearing. Roads are being built. Houses are going up. Trees are coming down. Between 1990 and 2023, Kashmir lost more than 10,000 hectares of forest to development projects. Every new road, every new settlement pushes the wild closer to the villages. A leopard doesn’t know where the forest ends. A bear doesn’t understand that this orchard is private property. They only know hunger, and hunger leads them to where the food is.

And food is everywhere. In the villages, waste piles up near homes. Leftover food, fruit peels, half-eaten meals. The black bears smell it. They come at night, sniffing, searching. In Anantnag, in Baramulla, in Kupwara—everywhere near the forests—you hear stories. Someone saw a bear outside their door. Someone else found a leopard under their porch. The animals are learning. They know where to look. In some places, they have started to come during the day.

It wasn’t always like this. Older generations remember a time when leopards stayed deep in the forests, when bears were a rare sight. They speak about how things have changed, how once there were vast stretches of trees between villages and the wild. Now, the boundary is thin. Now, the wild is at their doorstep.

The result? A woman goes to collect firewood. She doesn’t come back. A boy is playing outside, near the fence. He doesn’t come back either. And when a wild animal kills, the villagers kill back. People gather. They take whatever they have—sticks, stones, fire. If they catch the animal, they beat it to death. If not, they demand the government to do something.

But what can the government do? Wildlife officials come, tranquilizer guns ready. If they manage to capture the animal, they take it deep into the forest, release it, and hope it doesn’t come back. Sometimes, they relocate it to Dachigam or some far-off place. But leopards have long memories. Bears follow their noses. They return. And then, someone else dies.

There’s another reason why this is happening. The seasons aren’t what they used to be. Winter doesn’t come when it should. Summers stretch longer. The fruits that animals rely on in the forest—wild berries, nuts, and roots—aren’t growing the way they used to. A hungry bear doesn’t wait. A starving leopard doesn’t hesitate. They come down looking for food. And in that moment, a human life and an animal’s instinct cross paths.

It’s not just in the remote villages anymore. The conflict is reaching towns, cities. In 2023, a leopard was spotted near a hospital in Srinagar. Another was seen wandering through a university campus. Videos spread on social media—blurry images of a leopard sprinting past a main road, a bear climbing into someone’s backyard. The warnings go out: stay indoors, be careful, report any sightings. But by then, it’s already too late.

This is a war where no one wins. People are afraid. Animals are killed. Villagers bury their dead. The forests grow quieter, emptier. But the cycle continues.

What do we do? We can’t kill them all. We can’t stop living either. Some places have tried new ideas. In some villages, people use motion-sensor lights to scare away animals. In others, waste is stored properly, sealed off so that animals don’t get used to human food. Forests are being replanted, but not fast enough. The government offers compensation when someone is attacked. But how much is a life worth? Rs 3 lakh for a death. Rs 1 lakh for an injury. Does that bring someone back?

And then there is the other side. The animals’ side. Conservationists warn that killing wild animals is not the answer. Leopards and bears are protected species. If they disappear, the balance of nature shifts. The ecosystem suffers. When a leopard is killed, the smaller animals it once hunted—monkeys, wild boars—multiply rapidly, causing a different kind of damage. When a bear is killed, it doesn’t just mean one less predator in the forest. It means an orphaned cub struggling to survive. It means a species pushed closer to the brink.

The Forest Department is trying. They build watchtowers. They set up rapid response teams. They conduct awareness drives, telling villagers what to do, how to react. Don’t run. Don’t panic. Stand your ground. But when a bear comes charging, when a leopard lunges, does anyone remember those instructions?

Maybe the real question isn’t how to stop animal attacks. Maybe the question is—how much more land will we take before there’s nothing left? How many forests will we cut before the last leopard, the last bear, has nowhere to go? How many more people have to die before we realize this isn’t their fault?

And when that last tree falls, when the last wild thing is gone—will we finally understand? Or will we just build more houses?

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