Black bears living in tree hollows

black bears living in tree hollows ….

In childhood adolescence, with subconscious mind, sweet memories especially associated with the wild nature are  so  enchanting and difficult to express in their true form. Once these strange happenings of natural environment flash before human eyes, they get locked up deep in miniature neuro cells in human grey matter,  more powerful than silicon chips in computers. One such event that often splashes before my eyes is the scene in a village setting with people of all ages old and young, men and women, boys and girls gathering to circle the dancing bear show locally called as "haputnach" in Kashmir and getting mesmerized with the lyrical voices from the Gypsy beating the small drum "dugdugi". In old days, in the absence of electricity and TV, these traditional live shows used to be the main source of recreation to poor but industrious village dwellers at their leisure time following crop harvests. After watching thrilling dancing postures of captivated bear controlled cruelly by pulling a string tied to fleshy and swollen nostrils of the bear, small boys and girls would follow the gypsy whole day in  repeat shows throughout the village.

The only thing school children knew about bear (Kalla Reech or Haput) that time was that they live in the "wun" (dense forest) and gypsies capture their cubs from their dens while their mother is away in search of food or chasing them during night when they would damage terraced corn fields along mountain slopes. Gypsies (Kallanders) would then train these cubs and straighten them up to perform in these village shows so common during 1950s. The bear dancing used to be a source of livelihood to many such Gypsy families. Most of the bear dancing events were organized after crop harvests when the villagers had enough grains (paddy and maize) to pay in kind to the Gypsy with the bear locally called "Haputwalla". Sometimes a monkey would also be part of the bear dance. On seeing black bear, dogs in the mohalla   would get frightened, bark a little and then disappear for a while till the bear is away. Most of the show-watchers being ignorant about gypsies and using wild beasts as a source of livelihood did not get into deep thinking beyond the recreational aspect of the game.

The stories of the deadly encounters of people with wild bears also used to be common folklores in mountain villages. In my native village "Quilmuqam" I still remember fellow villager " Jabbar sheikh" a middle-aged tall person who while cutting grasses from a pasture  was attacked by a black bear with sharp claws chiseling flesh from his cheekbone and other body parts. The villager sensing danger to his life rolled down the hillslope over a kilometer and got stuck up by a big boulder. His painful shrieks due to bleeding wounds caught the attention of some nearby herders who came to his rescue. When these herders took the semi-conscious body of Jabbar Sheikh to his village, people were horrified to see him with such a badly mutilated face with blood drops still oozing out of the injuries inflicted by the bear. It took him more than six months to recover from this deadly encounter with a  savage bear. The scars of the bear claws were visible from his face and small boys would get frightened seeing him in the village.

At times the news of sighting a  bear during winter in foothill villages  in search of food during heavy snowfall would spread very fast and young kids would  get locked within four walls of the room. The fear of attack by a wild bear would make the people panicky especially women while working in agriculture fields away from their homes. One such incident still fresh in my mind is that a word spread in the school that a stray bear cub has been sighted close to the village and some people have started chasing him with sticks and rods to kill him. Full of energy and vigor the poor cub survived many attacks but the people ultimately forced him to retreat towards a marsh/wetland in the periphery of Wular Lake. When the cub got trapped in mud and could not make any movement the people were too cruel to kill him with freshly cut sticks from willow and poplar trees, two dominating tree species in rural landscape in Kashmir. I remember the pride and jubilation of the crowd who after killing this stray cub returned to the village. No single person had the human heart and soul to express sorrow for the cruelty with which this living creature often dreaded as wild beast met its fate at the hands of human beings whom God has made "Ashraful makhluqat" or the best of all creations on planet earth. Infact spending half a day in driving the wild cub towards a swamp and then killing him was something which everyone was proud of that time. As a boy, I too felt happy over the killing of the wild bear at that time without any feeling of condemnation that bears are a  part of our living environment.

At a very later stage in my life when I entered into my professional career, the realization of saving these wild creatures came in my subconscious mind. My first encounter with black bears came in 1977 when as a forester in AJK Forest Department, I was assigned to carry out silvicultural marking in old growth forests in Neelum Valley. At that time many compartments both on right and left side of the Neelum river used to be virgin forests with no human disturbance. In fact some forest areas were so inaccessible that it was only by putting a huge freshly cut deodar tree across the nullah that we could reach the forest planned for marking. There were no paths or tracks to traverse through the virgin temperate forests with overmature Deodar, Kail and Fir trees. More than 50 years back, an observation made by S.A. Vahid, then Chief Conservator Forests in his tour note about his visit to upper Neelum valley when jeep/mule tracks were so treacherous is quite revealing about the undisturbed nature of forests in Neelum Valley. He wrote that " at places there is an inch of difference between life and death."

In October, 1977 while conducting marking of trees for commercial harvesting in old growth forests in Neelum Valley, Azad Kashmir  with a field crew of 10-15 in a mixed moist temperate forest, I saw two black bears emerging out of the hollow of a big fir tree trunk in a dense old growth forest.  Perhaps the bears feeling the size of the field crew did not attack us but moved fast and disappeared in the dense forest. The scene was frightening but marvelous as I had never thought that bears shelter inside hollow tree trunks. The huge girth of the deodar, fir and spruce trees in Neelum Valley forests too was unbelievable. The notion of saving some old trees as a natural shelter for wildlife like bears did not strike in the mind, nor did I ever know before that tree trunks can be abode of such big and ferocious wild animals. 

After returning from Neelum valley, as a casual reader of Time &  Newsweek magazine an interesting article on "White spotted owl" captured my attention. In the article it was revealed that the  commercial harvesting of old growth forests in North-West forests near Seatle in Washington State, destroyed the habitat of white spotted owl living inside the old growth forests thus making them a threatened species. Until cutting of these forests, no one had imagined that white spotted owl species are associated with old growth trees and forests. This helped me to draw a parallel conclusion that old growth forests in Neelum Valley, AJK are not only precious for their invaluable timber stocks but more important as a habitat for many wildlife species. Now lately these temperate forests have assumed significance for acting as a natural carbon sink mitigating the impacts of global climate change. It is time to think about trees and forests beyond the realm of timber and firewood…….their environmental services transcend human understanding, knowledge and vision.