A 26-year-old Indian farmer was bitten to death by a sloth bear while he was guarding his family’s fields from livestock damage.
The incident happened last weekend, when a man named Lalram, 26 years old, living in Piparia Santosh village, located within the Pilibhit tiger reserve (Utah Pradesh state, India), was discovered by people. died, with many injuries on his body.
Lalram’s relatives said the man had left home the previous evening to guard the family’s sugarcane fields from being damaged by stray cattle, but Lalram did not return the next morning.
Sloth bears are dangerous animals, causing many attacks on humans in India (Photo: WildLife).
Authorities conducted an examination of the scene and Lalram’s body. Animal experts determined the injuries on Lalram’s body were caused by a sloth bear. It is possible that Lalram encountered the animal while walking on the road, but could not escape in time and was attacked by the animal.
Initially, the authorities determined that Lalram died inside the core area of the nature reserve. However, villagers said Lalram’s body was found in the family’s field, 200 meters from the forest boundary.
According to law in India, if people go into nature reserves and are attacked by wild animals and die, they will not be compensated. Meanwhile, if animals appear in villages and attack people, the victims will be compensated for their damages.
Arguments broke out between villagers and local authorities over the location where Lalram was attacked by bears, causing chaos. Finally, the local government agreed to compensate the victim’s family with 50,000 rupees (equivalent to 14.7 million VND), at which point the chaos ended.
Authorities are still searching for traces of the sloth bear that caused Lalram’s death.
Sloth bears, also known as sloth bears, live in lowland forests in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Adult sloth bears weigh from 80 to 140kg for males, and from 55 to 95kg for females.
Sloth bears are primarily ants and termite eaters, but also occasionally eat honey, fruit and meat.
Female sloth bears usually give birth to one to two cubs per pregnancy. Bear cubs will live with their mother for about 2 to 3 years, until they reach adulthood and live independently. Mother bears raise and care for their cubs alone, without the participation of male bears.
Sloth bears are one of the most dangerous bears and cause the most attacks on humans in the world.
According to statistics from the Indian government, sloth bears have attacked thousands of people and killed hundreds in this country alone in the past two decades. In 2017, a sloth bear attacked 11 people and killed one, in just one day in India.
Theo Assam