Pakistan Wildlife Conservation News

Link: http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=39513

Five Hazara leopards killed, bodies burnt
By Naveed Ahmad

ISLAMABAD: Five leopards were killed in two separate incidents in the Abbottabad and the Hazara districts and later their corpses were burnt by nomads from Kaghan and northern Hazara.

One of these leopards was killed near Bagra game reserve in the Haripur district, which was reportedly “thirsty and appeared sick”. Local villagers shot it dead when it approached a small stream in the Jabi hamlet located in the Bandi Sher Khan union council, said local wildlife conservationists.

According to the locals interviewed by the conservationists, the Kaghani nomads, living near the Jabri village, poisoned four other leopards in the forest near the village of Khora. The dead felines include a 10-year-old male leopard, a female and their two two-year-old cubs.

None of the WWF and NWFP wildlife officials returned repeated telephone calls from The News to give their version on the incident. The forest department officials were, however, unaware of both these incidents. The range officer of the Wildlife Department was also not accessible for comments.

Wasi-ur-Rehman, Coordinator of the Dubran Welfare and Conservation Society (DAWCS), Abbottabad, who was the first to discover the killings, visited the area and interviewed the people living near the protected forest. He confirmed to The News that the corpses could not be traced because the nomads burnt them to hide their crime.

The poison is used by the Kaghani nomads to protect themselves and their cattle from the beasts’ attack. However, there has been no report of killing of any cattle this season by the big cats.

Every winter, the nomads from Kaghan and northern Hazara regions normally descend to lower altitudes for want of cattle fodder and to evade harsh weather on the snow-clad mountain peaks. Though, temporary or permanent settlements in the forest reserves are illegal, the nomads somehow make their way through.

This year too, the nomads are camping around Dubran, Jabri and surrounding villages, where they find enough grass to grazing their herds in the government’s reserved forests. According to environmentalists, when nomads enter any forest, they graze cattle on small plants, and cut larger trees to build shelters. Their herds include dozens of animals such as goats, sheep and mules.

The leopard is found in almost every forest of Hazara, including the Margallah and the Murree hills.

Different families of leopards are spotted in the surroundings of Haro river — two in the Sarla reserve forest, three to four in the Margallah hills park, two in the Siribang area, three to four in the Dubran area, one to two in the Massah Gojari area of Kohala Lassan reserve forest, two to four in the Satoura and the Rahi area, 15 to 25 leopards in the Ayubia National Park and the Murree Hills while one to two leopards on the Havelian Cantt suburbs.

Responding to a question as to why these animals enter the residential areas, grazing lands, grass fields and roadside areas, the conservationists have a very simple answer: “Shrinking habitats and presence of privately protected forests near the villages and roads.”

Among the causes of shrinking habitats, the top-most remains the fuel wood pressure reducing the reserved forests to minimum, overgrazing by the nomads and last but not the least the timber smugglers.

Wasi recalled that in January 2005 a female leopard with two cubs entered a private protected area near Ghandian village near Haripur. One of the cubs was shot dead while the other two narrowly escaped.

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