Hunt in Kashmir turns bloody when bear turns on attackers
The Electric New Paper 17 Nov 07
THEIR hunting strategy was simple enough.
Dig a hole, camouflage it, wait for a bear to arrive, then drive it into the hole with sticks and torches.
But Mr Makhan Khan was probably not paying attention when the plan was being drawn up by his fellow poachers.
When the bear finally showed up, the confused Mr Khan found himself on the wrong end of the bear pit, fighting off the beast with a stick while his friends ran for cover.
But lucky for him, he only lost his head figuratively that day.
Mr Khan and his friends were out hunting for bears near the village of Gassoo, in Kashmir, when the beast turned the tables on them.
After digging a deep pit and covering it with leaves, the group must have thought that they had struck the jackpot when an Asiatic black bear wandered into the vicinity of their trap, reported the Daily Mail.
Mr Khan and his friends quickly whipped out sticks and a blazing torch, and attempted to drive the bear towards the pit.
But as these pictures show, their prey had other ideas.
The bear got the jump on the hunters and sent them fleeing in terror.
In the panic, Mr Khan ran right into the camouflaged bear pit and was swallowed up to his waist.
As the bear approached, Mr Khan tried to fend it off with his stick, but the bear swatted it aside like a toy.
The bear then grabbed his head, causing him to scream and drop further into the pit.
Fortunately, the bear quickly lost interest after that and ambled away.
Mr Khan suffered multiple injuries but survived, which was a much better fate than what the hunters had in mind for the bear.
Had the hunters been successful, it would have been killed for its pelt and meat.
Ironically, these photos were taken by an agency photographer while on assignment to highlight the illegal hunting of bears in Kashmir.
The Asiatic black bear is an endangered species across Asia, but numbers have soared in Kashmir because the armed separatist struggle has made poaching too dangerous in the Indian state.
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