I wish wildlife in Pakistan was more proetcted. Poachers run riot there sadly.
Footloose, NOS, The News International
Beary tales from the jungle
Based on some ill-founded myths, men in Chilas consider bears their hated adversary
By Dr Raheal Ahmad Siddiqui
My first serious encounter with a bear was when one winter night Abbi, my father, read me a real-life drama from Kenneth Anderson’s book. The story was about a rogue black bear in a South Indian jungle which, in 1950s, single-handedly mutilated and killed 12 people before being shot dead by this famous big game hunter. I shuddered in my bed. The child in me could not comprehend the disturbing thought — that the ‘Smokey Bear’ of my comics could be so ferocious.
Like all other pre-teen children of my time, it was Rudyard Kipling’s ‘The Jungle Book’ which introduced me to jungles of the subcontinent. Through Mowgli, I learnt about the snake fighting mongoose, the social setup of a wolf pack, the hated habits of hyena, the cunningness of the jackal, and the evil tiger ‘Sherkhan’ who wanted to kill my favourite man-cub.
But Mowgli had some good friends in the jungle.
The foremost was the wolf pack which nurtured and protected him as one of its own. ‘Bagheera’, the Black Panther also cared about him, but it was the old ‘Baloo’ bear which taught Mowgli the laws of the jungle. The most important ‘law of the jungle’ was ‘it never ordains anything without a reason and it forbids every beast to avoid killing a man’.
Reading Kipling’s book allowed me to enjoy rambling in wilderness without any fear of being attacked by a beast.
During my wanderings in recent years in Gilgil-Baltistan, I found out that the people in Chilas (Diamer District) consider bears their hated adversary. Their antagonism is based on some ill-founded myths — like bears kill their livestock for food.
Bears are not compulsive meat-eaters. But are frugivorous, and climb trees to forage. They are fond of mulberries, honey, potatoes and dig out roots. The man-bear conflict usually occurs when bears, driven by hunger, raid apricot orchards in June or maize crops in September for food. So, the black bears are killed by the villagers for their depredations to crops.
The easy availability of firearms is an added factor leading to the extinction of this specie from the valleys of Chilas.
I visited some of the valleys in my quest to save the black bears of Chilas. People in Dariel and Thore Valleys told me bears were originally offsprings of men who were driven into madness by their inability to pay their debts, and who took to the hills to avoid their creditors.
In Thurli Valley, 20 kms short of Chilas, I learnt people still believe bears are the distorted form of humans and sometimes they behave like pet animals. To substantiate this claim, Badar Jamil, an old but sturdy Gujjar, narrated me another folklore. “Long ago, at dusk an old woman saw a dark coloured animal lying outside her cottage. Taking it to be her cow, she dragged it by its ear and had it securely shut in the pen. Next morning it was found to be a bear.”
Few Septembers ago when the maize crop was ripe, this Gujjar, along with a relative, was walking along the Thurli stream. In full moon, he saw a silhouette with pointed ears, perched on the top of a Mulberry tree. He fired and something came crashing down through the branches. “It cried like a baby,” he recalls. Another shot by his companion silenced the three-month-old cub forever. In the later part of the night, mama bear returned and in rage tore apart the tree. The only thing left on it was sort of a nest where the baby bear was perched.
Gottlieb Wilheln Leitner (1841-1899), an Austro-Hungarian Orientalist and the first principal of the Government College, Lahore was deputed in 1866 by the Punjab government on a mission of linguistic inquiry to Kashmir and Chilas.
He recorded an interesting story of a bear and Ghalib Shah, a ‘one-eyed man’, who resided in a village near Astor: One night he saw a bear hastily eating his crop. The man got his gun and pointed it at the bear. The animal ran around the “blind side of the man’s face”, snatched the gun from his hand and threw it away. The bear and the man wrestled for a time, but both gave up struggle and retired. The son of that man still lives at the village and tells this story.
The fight between the bear and the ‘one-eyed’ man ended in a draw.
Legends are mostly made of stuff with happy endings. Dramas in real-life are just the opposite. Take, for instance, Furqan’s encounter with the bear.
It was May 1994. After spending a night in village Battian, about two hours walk from his home in Thurli Valley, 17-year-old Furqan and his friend climbed a ridge in front of the village at 9.00 in the morning to collect the bark of Timroo tree which in folk wisdom cures jaundice. He almost stepped on a male bear which was sleeping under a Timroo tree. He turned and fled, closely followed by the bear. As Furqan glanced back to see his pursuer, he found a black bear with white marks on his chest, standing on his hindquarters. The bear struck Furqan with its front paws.
Furqan’s friend heard his screams and saw him and the bear ‘bear hugging’ each other. He fired in the air so as not to harm Furqan, who by now was badly mauled, while the bear hearing the shots started running.
Furqan coolly inquired from his distraught friend the whereabouts of the bear and on knowing that it is moving up the slope, insisted that his friend should shoot this marauder first. His friend fired three shots, missed all and then the fourth shell got stuck up in the chamber. By now, totally blind, Furqan took the gun from his friend, but was unable to dislodge the cartridge. He collapsed.
Furqan was carried to his home on a charpoy, still bleeding. Luckily the SDO B&R Department was on a routine inspection of Thurli Valley. Furqan was sped away in his jeep to Chilas where he received his first medical help, 12 hours after the incident. The same night he was shifted to DHQ hospital Gilgit. He was discharged after 22 days, but his life would never be the same again. He carries deep scars on his scalp and face, and is blind in both eyes.
Since then, no bear attack has been reported in Diamir District. It is considered a shy, solitary creature which gives right of way to humans. She-bears are known to show aggressive behaviour while rearing cubs. Last year, a full-grown bear ran passed an eight-year-old boy in Gais Bala Valley. No harm was caused to the excited boy.
The unprovoked aggression in the case of Furqan is easier to explain in terms of Mowgli’s laws of the jungle which says that “none of Jungle People (wild animals) like being disturbed and all are ready to fly at an intruder”.
Despite strict wildlife laws against poaching in the country, the ruthless killing of wild animals continues unabated. Baloo, the old bear, taught jungle laws to the man-cub Mowgli: “Is there anything in the jungle too little to be killed? No. That is why I teach you these things. Hunt for food, but not for pleasure.”
The more I read Kipling’s book in recent years, the more I am convinced we need to apply the jungle laws as taught by ‘Baloo’ the bear on ourselves.
The writer is a conservationist and an animal right activist and can be reached at [EMAIL=“[email protected]”][email protected]
