Palanpur: The killer female bear, which had mauled 3 persons including a forest official to death, and was shot dead on March 15 near Kansa village in Banaskantha district of North Gujarat had prima facie turned ‘man-eater’ as human flesh and hair was found from its stomach during post-mortem conducted by a team of six expert vets of Sardarkrushinagar Dantiwada Agricultural University.

However, the possibility of turning of a fully vegan beast in to a habitual man-eater can be fully confirmed only after the detailed report about it from the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) Gandhinagar.

DCF, Palanpur I K Barad today said that the eight year old female bear (quite young as the average life span of a sloth bear is 18 to 20 years) was also found to be suffering from heavy infection of Rabies. ‘The beast most likely turned violent owing to Rabies. In the frenzy caused by the disease it must have eaten up parts of the bodies of those killed by it but whether it had turned in to a full fledged habitual man-eater, which kills people to eat human meat, or not can be ascertained only after the FSL test is complete. Remains of human flesh and hair have been found from its stomach during the post mortem,’ he said adding that as a precautionary measure a watch is being kept on the over 50 bears in Balaram Ambaji Wildlife Sanctuary, to which the Kansa village was a part, so that if any one of them is found to be behaving abnormally, it might be segregated and checked and treated for rabies.

He said that as per the last animal census in the sanctuary in May 2016, a total of 59 sloth bears were in it. The DCF ruled out the possibility of the bears from the sanctuary moving to the forests over 70 km away in Idar taluka of Sabarkantha district where a bear attack on a 62 year old local in Jodkampa village on the same day when the female killer bear was killed in Kansa (March 15) has put the forest team on high alert, ‘Normally such bears live in an area of the radius of 10 km or so,’ he said.

Meanwhile, before the elimination of the female bear when its gender was not known it was rightly presumed by the forest department team of the sanctuary that it must be a female on the basis of assumption that such violent behaviour was exhibited by female beasts only when they were in great pain or were forcefully parted from their cubs or any attack on their off-springs.

After the failed operation to track the beast which had killed 3 persons including a forester and injured five with 3 of them being forest department men, during the morning session of the rescue operation on March 15 in which police and a team of wild animal rescue experts from capital Gandhinagar were also present, special trap cameras were being kept to track the beast during night.

‘We had put one camera close to the place where the attacks had happened and were trying to put the second one at a distance of around 15 meters from the first spot near a water source when the beast suddenly came out of a bush and tried to attack the three men involved in fitting of the camera which can take the images of the objects crossing before it even in the dark. Looking at it the team with tranquilizing guns tried to fire shots at the beast but the target failed. In the meantime it started moving towards the second team standing at a higher rock nearby. The beast was very violent and we were left with no other option but to fire gun shots at it. The shooters of police fired at around 5 pm and it died on the spot,’ an ACF rank officer who was part of the operation said.

Notably the bear, attacked and killed a villager from Khapra, Bhikhabhai Bhagora (35) who had gone to graze his goats in the nearby jungles in Kansa on March 12. On the next day ie March 13 another person Manabhai Angari (26) of the same village was killed in bear attack in which two others injured while they were looking out for missing Bhikhabhai. Yesterday forester R H Patni (56) was killed in bear attack in which three other forest department employees injured during its search operation. The incident took place around Kansa and adjoining areas under Danta Taluka in the Balaram Ambaji Wildlife Sanctuary, which is a home to over 50 such bears. The forest is spread in over 500 square km. The places of occurrence were situated inside the sanctuary in which many tribal villages are located. A massive operation with the involvement of shooters of district police,wildlife experts, commandos and forest department teams was launched in the area to nab or eliminate the beast.

The ACF said that it was for the first time that human beings have been killed in attack by a bear in the area. ‘That’s why a special post mortem by experts of Dantiwada Agricuture university situated around 30 km from Palanpur was necessitated,’ he said.

Desh Gujarat