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Bearly there
An interesting first person account of how unscrupulous people capture and sell bear cubs in Chilas
By Dr Raheal Ahmad Siddiqui
Bear trade is common in Chilas (Diamir District). Usually, gypsies from the plains buy the cubs through Pathan middlemen and train them for ‘reech tamasha’, a sort of bear dance. Some cubs are also used for bear-baiting, where a hapless bear is tied with a rope and three or four blood thirsty hounds are let loose on it. The fight mostly ends up with severe injuries to the bear. This sport, if we may call it one, is common among Punjabi landlords who enjoy betting.
The Himalayan black bear is found in Neelum Valley of Azad Jammu Kashmir, lower parts of Kaghan Valley in Hazara district, deodar forests of Dir and lower Chitral, Diamir (Chilas) Indus Kohistan. It is considered bad tempered, extremely excitable, shortsighted and usually dashes off if it sees or hears a human. If cornered, it attacks without provocation, impelled not by bravery but by fright and a desire to get away. Rising on its hind quarters, it will maul the victim’s face and eyes. Otherwise, black bears are known for their cowardice.
The only known case of bear attack that occurred in Pakistan was in Thurli Valley of Chilas in 1994. The victim, Furqan, lost both his eyes when he almost stepped on a sleeping bear.
In 1866, G.W. Leitner, while rambling in the wild territories of Chilas, noted a curious incident told to him by Mullah Lal Mohammad. He was escorted to Chilas as a prisoner when, at dusk, they saw a company of bears tearing up the grass and making bundles of it which they hugged. “Other bears wrapped their heads in grass, and some stood on their hind-paws, holding a stick in their forepaws and dancing to the sound of the howls of the others. They then arranged themselves in rows at each end of which was a young bear and were supposed to be ‘celebrating a marriage’.”
Kenneth Anderson in his book ‘Snakes and other jungle creatures’ describes the feeding habits of black bears as: “It behaves like a clown while digging for roots or burrowing into the nest of white ants. It emits sounds that resemble anything from bug-pipe being inflated to the droning of the airplane, from buzzing of angry wasp to the huffing of a black smith bellows. He will twist and control his body into all shapes provided he can get at those tasty roots…”
The two descriptions have great similarities. What G.W. Leitner had recorded was in fact not a marriage ceremony as was commonly believed in Chilas and Gilgit at that time. It was simple dinner time for a family of black bears, as they forage usually at dusk or soon afterwards. The rest was imaginative speculation by a frustrated prisoner called Mullah Lal Mohammad.
Himalayan black bears mate in October before they hibernate. Cubs are born in February, usually one or two in a litter. They stay with the mother for three years and are known to live up to 30 years. It is in the months from February to August that a she-bear often becomes vulnerable to hunters’ greed. She is killed and her babies sold for a few thousand rupees.
During August 2010, massive floods in Indus washed away bridges along the Karakoram Highway, bringing life in Chilas to a standstill. Rain and flash floods played havoc in the valley. But the situation provided me an opportunity to interact with more people than is usually possible. I was appalled to find the scale of bear trade in this district.
According to Raj Hans, a contractor with the education department, a full grown bear was trapped inside a cave in June that year. He said, “It was kept without food and water for three days while the middlemen were busy in settling deals. The wildlife department in Gilgit meanwhile got the news and had the poor creature released. Similarly, a few years ago a bear was trapped inside a cave and was shot dead. Its pelt was taken away by a colonel in the army. Fat was removed and sold in the market. The buyer was a hakeem who paid them well.”
My guide Hameedullah told me that a baby bear was sold for Rs.21,000 in 2005. It was caught in Thore valley after the she-bear was shot dead as it refused to part with the cubs and sheltered them behind her. Likewise, Badar Jameel, a Gujjar from Thurli valley, said a bear cub was caught from a mulberry tree in May 2007 and sold for Rs.20,000. And in Tangir, a cub was sold for an undisclosed amount in June this year.
According to the 1993 Survey of WWF, 1607 captive bears were in possession of nomadic gypsies — and about 115 cubs are sold annually.
Bears don’t attack humans. Raj Hans, son of Abdul Quddus, said last year in the Gaisbala valley, “an eight-year-old boy spotted a bear on a mulberry tree near their village.” He ran to inform the villagers, but meanwhile the bear slipped away. The boy remembered that he had often seen a bear moving up a particular hill which had a number of caves. He climbed to the cave and shouted that it was there. The bear rushed out, brushed passed the child and disappeared in the thick undergrowth. “Sahib, it did not touch the child deliberately. Had there been a man, it would have surely attacked it,” he told me and I agreed with him.
This bear probably had parental instincts which prevented it from causing any harm to the small boy. And it is precisely this instinct which is lacking in humans who sell orphaned bear cubs for a few thousand rupees!
While travelling to the Tangir valley to assess the damage caused by the 2010 floods, Sibtain Ahmad, deputy commissioner of Chilas, said the growing population that is encroaching on bear habitats is the primary reason for bear killings. He believed mostly this animal falls prey to the guns when they raid maize crops in September or are caught up on mulberry trees in May. Besides, bear trade, he said, ‘Itch-me’ (in Shina language ‘itch’ means bear and ‘me’ fat) is another reason why bears are hunted and killed. Bear fat is used in traditional medicines to cure asthma and other ills. Ahmad recalled that ‘itch-me’ was freely available in apothecary shops in Gilgit when he was a teenager.
The next day, I was in the Chilas town looking for bear fat. We visited the Saeed Pansari shop where the product was available for Rs.2000 per tola. Then my guide Hameedullah took me to the Ajmal Pansari Store where Hakim Shafauddin said that it was out-of-stock. Instead he offered to sell me a bear cub for Rs.50,000.
My friends — Feryal Gohar and Salman Rashid — called to chip in the money to rescue the orphaned cub from the traders.
Hakim Shafauddin took us on a wild goose chase to the end of Khenar valley. A group of Sawatis told us that a cub was kept in a mountain hut, two days walk from that place. The mother-bear was killed while the second cub escaped and could be heard crying for the mother. I suspected that they took me (wearing jeans) to be someone from wildlife department and shied away. It was raining and we had a narrow escape on the way back as a hill torrent hit the valley. Re-crossing the Thalpan suspension bridge over Indus in complete darkness was a nightmare. The mighty Indus was roaring in fury. The same night, this bridge was washed away and flash flood in Kehnar valley caused 11 deaths with great loss of property. Cries were heard. Nature had struck back.