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General
Dec 18, 2011 0:43:55 GMT -9
Post by warsaw on Dec 18, 2011 0:43:55 GMT -9
A wounded grizzly bear, which was later euthanized, rests Sunday in Soldotna. Biologist Jeff Selinger said the bear had at least three gunshot wounds, all of which were a few days old. Selinger said the bear was on its last legs and looking for a place to curl up and die when it drew a crowd of about 100 people with cameras and cell phones at about noon Sunday at Mackey Lake Road and the Sterling Highway. No one had reported a bear shot in defense of life or property. juneauempire.com/stories/061908/sta_292755903.shtml
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Dec 24, 2011 2:42:28 GMT -9
Post by warsaw on Dec 24, 2011 2:42:28 GMT -9
Polar bear prison opens in Canada They might be one of the world’s most powerful predators but there’s something even polar bears should be afraid of - jail. Read more: www.metro.co.uk/news/world/885254-polar-bear-prison-opens-in-canada#ixzz1hS3hIMHNPolar Bear Prison: Water Rations And Six Foot Cells 'Teach Bears A Lesson' (Pictures) At a polar bear prison in Canada, the bears who wander down to the small town of Churchill too often are in for a big surprise. Held in tiny cells, and fed nothing but water for months at a time, the aim is to make sure these polar bears have such a horrible time when they visit Churchill, Manitoba, that they never stray close to the town again. “We try to make their stay as unpleasant as possible” said Bob Windsor, from the holding facility. The hungry polar bears encroach on Churchill, which describes itself as “the polar bear capital” during the spring and summer, when the ice melts and their usual supply of seals becomes a limited food source. The warehouse contains 28 cells, each six square feet wide, where the half-ton bears are kept locked up, and separated from their inmates. Extra punishment is doled out to those bears who are especially naughty Snow is pushed through the cages, but they get no food. The "jail" authorities claim is this not cruel as polar bears fast during the summer months anyway. Alison Hood, campaigns director at Born Free Foundation told the Huffington Post UK: "I've been to the polar bear "jail" about five years ago. It is incredibly basic, it was just an old aircraft hangar when I was last there. "The jail prevents the town from killing problem bears. The polar bears are definitely very hungry but they don't want the bears to associate Churchill with food, otherwise that would cause a problem for the town. "It's not cruel but a necessity when you have dangerous carnivores living next to a population. It allows conservation." The polar bear prison was installed after inhabitants of the tiny town of Churchill got fed up with the bears breaking into their homes and cars in search of food. Around 1000 bears tramp through the village, looking for extra rations. Inhabitants are so sick of being invaded that if there’s not enough cells left at the polar bear jail then the bears are tranquillised and transported further north, to help them on their annual trek to Hudson Bay. Read more: www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/12/19/polar-bear-prison-churchill-polar-bear-jail-canada_n_1157689.html
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Dec 28, 2011 13:57:27 GMT -9
Post by warsaw on Dec 28, 2011 13:57:27 GMT -9
PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, October 20 (Itar-Tass) — As many as 51 brown bears have been shot dead because of aggressive behaviour since spring 2011 on Russia’s Far Eastern Kamchatka peninsula, a spokesman for the local forestry agency told Itar-Tass on Thursday. According to the spokesman, game keepers had to kill these bears because the beasts had already attacked humans and any other measures to ensure safety of local residents were to no avail. Three persons were killed by brown bears in Kamchatka this summer. The beasts came close to populated localities. One bear showed up on the territory of an army unit and attacked a soldier. Specialists say the wild animals are driven to human settlements because of heaps of garbage, where they can easily find something to eat. This winter, specials say, insomniac bears may roam the territory and appear in settlements. To ensure safety of local resident, the authorities have been recommended to set up special teams of hunters, police and rescuers. The Kamchatka brown bear, also known as the Far Eastern brown bear, is the largest subspecies in Eurasia, with a body length of 2.4 metres, to 3 metres tall on hind legs and a weight of up to 700 kilograms. Fur colour is predominantly dark brown with a violet tint. Light coloured individuals are rarely encountered. In the summer period, they feed on blueberries, crowberries, humpback salmon, and salmon trout. In autumn, they eat nuts from nut-pines and mountain ash, and fish. In times of famine, they eat dead fish or marine mammals, berries and graminoid vegetation. Kamchatka brown bears are generally not dangerous to humans, and only a small percentage of encounters result in attack. www.itar-tass.com/c32/252027.pdf
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Dec 28, 2011 14:44:53 GMT -9
Post by warsaw on Dec 28, 2011 14:44:53 GMT -9
Curious polar bears delve into Siberia’s Arctic. Boris Gorokhov’s photo report from Yakutia, Russia. Just imagine. You woke up in the morning and see this in the window… Polar bears are becoming common in the northern part of the Republic of Sakha-Yakutia, Russia’s Siberia and Far East. They are coming to Yakutia’s Arctic seashore regularly and it is not an extraordinary event anymore. A decade ago, people considered polar bears’ delving into the region as the sign of bears’ curiousity. Now they come to the mainland for food apparently. Is it the global warming forcing them to penetrate Siberia’s Arctic?... coldunited.com/2011/01/polar-bears-pictures-arctic-yakutia-siberia-russia-global-warming/
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Dec 29, 2011 5:48:59 GMT -9
Post by warsaw on Dec 29, 2011 5:48:59 GMT -9
Bear In Basement Surprises Cable Man: MyFoxNY.com HOPATCONG, N.J. — A cable TV repairman got quite a surprise when he walked into the basement of a New Jersey home. WNBC-TV The bear was tranquilized and removed from the home. There was a 500-pound bear sound asleep on the floor. The bear had been spotted wandering in the neighborhood in Hopatcong earlier Wednesday. It's not clear how it got in the home. WNBC-TV in New York reports state Fish and Game officials fired a tranquilizer dart in the bruin, which walked a few blocks to the Missouri Trail before it was knocked out. Officials plan to relocate the bear. No one was injured. www.northjersey.com/news/state/Cable_guy_finds_sleeping_bear_in_NJ_basement.htmlfox4kc.com/2011/12/15/cable-guy-finds-bear-in-basement/
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Mar 14, 2012 11:36:33 GMT -9
Post by warsaw on Mar 14, 2012 11:36:33 GMT -9
First Hokkaido police officer killed in action was victim of brown bear attack
SAPPORO -- A police officer who died 130 years ago after fighting a brown bear in southern Hokkaido was the first member of the Hokkaido Prefectural Police who died in the line of duty.
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Mar 15, 2012 13:49:20 GMT -9
Post by warsaw on Mar 15, 2012 13:49:20 GMT -9
[/quote] Pattern of bear maul maxillofacial injuries in Kashmir Ajaz A Shah1, BA Mir1, Irshad Ahmad1, Suhail Latoo2, Ashaq Ali1, Babar Ali Shah1 1 Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Government Dental College and Hospital, Srinagar, Kashmir, India 2 Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, Government Dental College and Hospital, Srinagar, Kashmir, India Objective : Bears are strong and agile wild animals that defend themselves, their young ones and their territory, if they feel threatened. Conflicts between humans and bears are common in bear-prevalent areas of the world. Our valley, which is surrounded all around by forests, is a habitat for black bears (U. thiabetanus) only. Maulings inflicted by these black bears are catastrophic events and such attacks have increased considerably in the recent past due to merciless deforestation. The rising incidences of such attacks, especially in maxillofacial region, have urged our department to undertake a study of such attacks and injuries. Materials and Methods: The present study is both a retrospective and prospective study of 200 patients of bear maulings who were admitted and treated in the Department of OMFS, Govt. Dental College, Srinagar, from January 2005 to October 2009. Results: Majority of the patients were from villages. Most of them belonged to fourth decade and majority was males. Black bears only were involved in all the encounters. Claws, paws and combination of both, were the used for attack. In majority of cases, no defense was used for the termination of attack. All the patients had soft tissue injury, deep lacerations, facial viscera, eyes, salivary glands and facial nerve commonly involved Bears are strong and agile wild animals that defend themselves, their young ones and their territory, if they feel threatened. All bears are potentially dangerous, unpredictable and have the ability to inflict serious injury. Conflicts between humans and bears are common in bear-prevalent areas of the world. Such attacks have resulted in major human injuries as well as deaths, in addition to property damage. Three types of bears known are black bears, grizzly and polar bears . Black bears (Ursus thiabetanus) range in color from blonde through brown to jet black, weighing about 55-135 kg (122-300 lbs), measuring in length from 1.2 to 1.5 m (4-5 feet) and about 60-100 cm (2-3.6 lbs) in height, but can easily reach up to 6 feet when standing on their hind legs. They can run at an average speed of 48 km/hour. They are the only variety found in Kashmir and are less aggressive. Bear encounters are categorized as sudden, provoked or predative. In sudden encounters, neither the person nor the bear is aware of each other's presence till they are in close range of each other. Such encounters are usually defensive in nature whereby the bears try to protect their young ones, their food cache or their territory. Provoked encounters are the second most common type of encounters. Such cases occur with bear hunters and wild life photographers. Hunters who either miss or place an inadequate shot can become a victim of their prey. Predatory attacks are defined as the ones where the bear clearly treats its victim as a food source. Our valley, which is surrounded all around by forests, is a habitat for black bears (U. thiabetanus) only. Maulings inflicted by these black bears are catastrophic events and such attacks have increased considerably in the recent past due to merciless deforestation. The rising incidences of such attacks, especially in maxillofacial region, have urged our department to undertake a study of such attacks and injuries. Reports regarding the pattern of injuries caused by bears in humans are scarce in literature, though much has been written on bears, their attacks and methods of prevention from such attacks. The present study is both a retrospective and prospective study of all the patients of bear maulings who were admitted and treated in the Department of OMFS, Govt. Dental College, Srinagar, from January 2005 to October 2009. Study consisted of 200 patients, of whom 125 belonged to retrospective group and 75 were from prospective group. All the details in both retrospective and prospective groups were evaluated as per the proforma. In the retrospective group, the case records were retrieved from the Department of Medical Records of this hospital. In the prospective group, a detailed history was taken from the patients/attendants, laying special emphasis on location of bear-human encounter (habitat of bear), circumstances which led to the encounter, single bear or sow with cubs, nature and duration of attack. Any deterrent measures used during the incident and any primary treatment received by the patient before reaching our hospital, were all noted down. On arrival in the casualty section of our department, a record of the vital signs was made. Any breathing problems or life-threatening complications were dealt with by instituting proper resuscitative measures, including tracheostomy (if needed). The patients were adequately evaluated for the presence of any head, chest, abdominal or skeletal injuries. A thorough clinical examination from head to toe was made to evaluate the site and type of injury inflicted. Details of wounds were recorded. Any bony fractures were noted down. Any soft tissue or bony loss was also recorded. Routine investigations including radiographs were done in all cases besides special investigations such as ultrasonography (USG), computed tomography (CT) scan, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Doppler studies, etc., wherever indicated. Any fatalities among the injured were recorded and finally statistical analysis of all collected data was made. Results Majority of the patients were from villages. Most of them belonged to fourth decade
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Mar 16, 2012 23:57:56 GMT -9
Post by warsaw on Mar 16, 2012 23:57:56 GMT -9
Lone Male Black Bears Responsible for Most Attacks on Humans An article in the Journal of Wildlife Management reports that the majority of fatal bear attacks on people are carried out by lone male black bears. Perhaps more significantly, the report also suggests that these attacks are on the increase. Dr Stephen Herrero from the University of Calgary is the researcher behind the claims. His study focuses on human fatalities as a result of bear attacks in North America between 1900 and 2009. The results demonstrate, he says, that the most common cause for a bear attack is a predatory male searching for food and not, as previously believed, as the result of a female bear being overly protective of a cub: ''Most fatal black bear attacks were predatory and all fatal attacks were carried out by a single bear,'' he says. ''With training, people can learn to recognise the behaviour of a bear that is considering them as prey and deter an attack by taking aggressive action such as fighting back.'' However, the doctor has substantiated other perceptions about bears. Bears that attack humans once will very often do so again and bears are more prone to attacking lone individuals or couples as opposed to larger groups. Commenting on why 86% of fatal attacks by bears have taken place since 1960, Dr Herrero believes this may have something to do with more human contact in black bear habitats than before: ''We didn't demonstrate why population growth is correlated with more bear attacks but we suspect it is because there are more people pursuing recreational and commercial activities in black bear habitat.'' It was noted that the majority of deaths occurred in less populated areas such as Canada and Alaska. The reason for this is thought to have been that when the bears have less food sources, such as during cold spells, the black bears turn to humans for prey. Is should be pointed out that although the study shows incidences of bear attacks are on the increase, they are still rare with just 63 deaths reported since 1900. www.earthtimes.org/nature/lone-male-black-bears-responsible-for-most-attacks-on-humans/829/
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Mar 16, 2012 23:58:27 GMT -9
Post by warsaw on Mar 16, 2012 23:58:27 GMT -9
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Mar 17, 2012 9:16:14 GMT -9
Post by warsaw on Mar 17, 2012 9:16:14 GMT -9
A Bear attacks a woman in Singtam Posted on August 20, 2011 by iSikkim | Category: Local News Slider Post | 88 views | 0 Comments Mani Tamang of Thangsing under Singtam- Khamdong constituency was attacked by a Himalayan black bear today. The incident happened when Tamang who had gone to bring grass from her field in the morning and could not see the sleeping bear in her field. She sustained injuries in her face (cheek) and was rushed to the Singtam District Hospital by her neighbors. After receiving first aid she was referred to STNM Hospital for further treatment. Speaking to media on the incident Chief Conservator of Forest (CCF) Gut Lepcha said that the bear had appeared in the forest one week ago. The lolcal Panchayats, Villagers and Forest Department officer had organized a meeting and during the meeting they had decided to shoot the bear as it is very dangerous for people. According to the decision taken the forest officials reached in spot and tried to capture it with the help of tranquilizers but it could not be captured so the bear was killed. isikkim.com/a-bear-attacks-a-woman-in-singtam-90532/sy: Sikkim Mail
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Mar 17, 2012 9:22:47 GMT -9
Post by warsaw on Mar 17, 2012 9:22:47 GMT -9
Sloth bear spreads terror in Rajasthan villages The animal has killed two and injured eight persons so far There is panic in the villages bordering Van Vihar wildlife sanctuary in Dholpur district of Rajasthan after attacks by a sloth bear led to the death of two persons in the past two days. The animal has so far injured eight others. The wildlife authorities here, after receiving an SOS from the sanctuary officials, rushed a team led by a senior veterinarian from Jaipur Zoo on Tuesday for tranquilising the animal. “Going by the pattern of attacks we presume that it must be one sloth bear,” said Principal Chief Conservator of Forests P. S. Somashekar to The Hindu . The sanctuary, not far from the Uttar Pradesh border, reported 12 sloth bears in the latest wildlife census in the State though normally they are not too visible in the forest there. The Kailadevi sanctuary in Sawai Madhopur, adjoining Van Vihar, has a population of another 50 sloth bears. Injured The first killing took place on Monday afternoon when Ram Babu, a resident of Veerpur village adjoining the sanctuary was mauled to death. The villagers who spotted his mutilated body also insist that part of it was consumed by the animal. The bear then proceeded to the pond, shared by the wild animals and the human population to drink water and came into confrontation with shepherd Ramji Lal and his family. His wife and two sons, besides a cattle guard Munna, were also mauled by the animal. The second victim who died was a local herbalist Tej Singh, who was on the lookout for medicinal plants inside the sanctuary when the animal approached him. Three others from Baripura village who tried to rescue him also came under attack. The injured have been admitted to hospitals in Dholpur and Agra. Tej Singh hailed from Uttar Pradesh. Peaceful co-existence “After the first attack the animal went inside the sanctuary. At night we fired crackers to keep it away from human habitation. However this afternoon, around 2-30 it again appeared and attacked this man who was collecting herbs,” said Jaiprakash Choudhary, Assistant Conservator of Forests, Dholpur, talking on phone. “People of the village vouchsafe for their peaceful co-existence with the sloth bears in the past. Sloth bears come to the village for drinking water from the pond and also to drink honey from the hives of honeybees on tree branches there but never there had been any such instance of unprovoked attacks,” said Mr. Choudhary. “We don't know what provokes the animal to attack humans. The second killing has come as a big shock to us,” said Mr. Somashekar. He said the department would look into payment of compensation for loss of human lives once the formalities get completed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- • First victim, Ram Babu of Veerpur village, was mauled to death on Monday • The second victim who died was local herbalist Tej Singh www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/article2968281.ece
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Mar 25, 2012 6:57:13 GMT -9
Post by warsaw on Mar 25, 2012 6:57:13 GMT -9
Body condition, sex and age of problem bears - considering social status and food availability Elfström M.1 (marcus.elfstrom@umb.no), L. Budic1, A. Zedrosser1, I. Kojola2, M. Jonozoviè3, Ð. Huber4 and J.E. Swenson1. 1 Department of Natural Resources and Management, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, N-1432 Aas, Norway. 2Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute, Oulu Game and Fisheries Research, Tutkijantie 2 E, FIN-90570 Oulu, Finland 3 Slovenia Forest Service, Veèna pot 2, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia 4 Department of Biology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Zagreb, Heinzelova 55, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia Wildlife managers and the general public consider brown bears appearing close to people to be a nuisance and a threat to human property and safety. The prevailing paradigm is that such “problem” bears use areas close to people in search of food. Females with dependent young, and especially subadult bears, seem to occur close to people more often than adult males and females without cubs. We tested whether problem bears are either subdominant (i.e. subadult) or individuals vulnerable to intra-specific predation (i.e. subadults, females with cubs-of-the-year) and therefore occur near human settlements to avoid competition with dominant adult bears. We compared the body condition index (BCI) of bears killed as nuisance individuals with that of bears killed during regular hunting in populations in northern (Sweden and Finland) and southern (Slovenia and Croatia) Europe. Subadult bears were more often killed as problem bears than adult bears in all populations. We found no correlation between occurrences of problem-bears and mean annual BCI of bears shot during regular hunting in northern Europe, however, the BCI of problem bears was significantly lower than that of bears killed during regular hunting in southern Europe. Problem bears occurred most often during periods of high intraspecific aggression (i.e. the mating season in May-July) in northern and southern Europe. We found a significant correlation between the number of problem bears and poor environmental conditions only in southern populations. The BCI of bears shot in self-defence was not significantly different from bears killed during regular hunting in the Swedish population. However adult bears were more often shot in self-defence than subadults, perhaps because adults have a generally shorter flight distance than younger bears. Our results suggest that the occurrence of problem bears may be caused by a combination of factors involving intraspecific social behavior as well as food availability
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Mar 31, 2012 5:34:26 GMT -9
Post by warsaw on Mar 31, 2012 5:34:26 GMT -9
Brown bear called "shatun"(a non-hibernating vagrant bear)((bears that do not accumulate enough fat for hibernation anddo not sleep in winter).. Inyears of crop failure of primary fattening foods the “shatun” bears appear in large areas. Such shatun (wanderer) bears are responsible for most bear-caused human fatalities in Russia. LIVING WITH BEARS IN RUSSIA M.A. Vaisfeld, Russia. In Russia now live about 100 thousand brown bears and about 150 million persons. In most ancient times, people was less, and it is more than bears, but also then and now in the woods people and bears lived and live side by side. Their coexistence was difficult enough and varied in time. Natives of the North and Siberia even from late Palaeolithic period had the ceremony of reverence, and somewhere a humanization of bear. In ancient Russia people sympathies to bear and their popularity were much greater, than any other animal. It is not casual that people "awarded" a bear almost with forty nicknames. Northern peoples had and still have the huge number of superstitions, connected with a bear. They were based on quivering respect for force of an animal and at the same time they fear of him. On the other hand, the bear served as object of a craft from ancient time. The hunt in those times had extremely utilitarian character (extraction of meat and skins), but was frequently accompanied by especial rituals. Conflict situations between a bear and the person were always, but they were not mass, as now and were less intensive, though sometimes were dramatic. Eventually all of them became more aggravated, during the increase of the population and anthropogenic press on natural ecosystems (large-scale wood felling, recreational pressures, an intensification of a hunt, growth of a livestock of cattle, etc). Bears rendered and damage the person, attacking on cattle, ruining apiaries, peasant's log hut, destroying wild ungulate animals. Rather frequent unprovoked attacks on people. In case of a total poor harvest of the basic forages, which frequently happens in Siberia, undened animals sometimes terrorize and literally hold in silage the whole villages. About 150 attacks per one year are observed such period. The person damages a bear by hunt and indirectly by economic activities resulting in anthropologenic transformation of ecosystems. The intensity and character of a hunt eventually varied. In old times hunting holes, timbered traps, wooden traps and large bear traps were widely used. Hunt with Russian bear-spear - two-edged long blade, haft on a strong staff was considered as the special boldness of the person. The hunt with fire-arms on a den, on trains, on oats fields, with husky is now widely used. In the past the hunt for a bear was not regulated, and up to middle of 70th of already last century, encouraged. Further restrictions of terms of a hunt during summer, autumn, and winter period were introduced and the hunt began to be carried out under licenses. In the last decade of the past century the illegal hunt for a bear extremely because of unprecedented demand on the bear's gall was widely used. Now commercialization of hunts for a predator are put under real threat the well-being of the populations on the east countries, especially in Khabarovsk and Primorsk areas, and sometimes in another parts of the areal. multimedia.hint.no/bearconference/abstracts/Vaisfeld.htmVery "large" (about 150 kg,exhausted and very thin)brown bear shatun " terrorize and literally hold in silage the village " www.amur.info/news/2010/11/26/12.htmltranslate.google.pl/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=pl&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amur.info%2Fnews%2F2010%2F11%2F26%2F12.htmltranslate.google.pl/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=pl&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http://lv.ust-kut.org/%3F2008/49/11492008.htmIn the Krasnoyarsk region bear kill two people translate.google.pl/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=pl&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http://lenta.ru/news/2007/09/18/medved/The man-eater from Krasnoyarsk region. Brown bear shatun,moments before the attack on the car. www.altai-sayan.com/about/publ/Bear.pdf
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Apr 2, 2012 11:53:00 GMT -9
Post by warsaw on Apr 2, 2012 11:53:00 GMT -9
Sloth bear kills 2 in MP, beaten to death A sloth bear that killed two villagers and left a policeman fighting for his life was beaten to death by villagers in Venkatnagar village in Anuppur district on Saturday. So violent was the animal’s attack that Madanlal Yadav died on the spot in a field while Ravi Yadav who tried to rescue him died on way to hospital. When constable Sudhir Singh went to the spot, barely a few hundred metres from the Chhattisgarh border, the animal attacked him as well before villagers rescued him. Relatives and villagers then killed the animal out of fear and anger and unsuccessfully tried to set it afire. DFO, Anuppur, T S Chaturvedi said sloth bear was an endangered species under the Wildlife Protection Act and its killing could invite a jail term of up to 10 years. The forest department registered a case against “unknown persons’’ as naming villagers would have aggravated the situation. The victims would get a compensation of Rs 1 lakh each. Forest officials said there were not many cases of man-animal conflict in the region. www.indianexpress.com/news/Sloth-bear-kills-2-in-MP--beaten-to-death/911119/
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Apr 20, 2012 2:21:28 GMT -9
Post by warsaw on Apr 20, 2012 2:21:28 GMT -9
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