Chamoli, 20 Oct 2007
Edward James Corbett left India in 1947, but in Uttaranchal’s leopard land, his silhouette still exists in the form of a 43-year-old teacher. On July 25, the birth anniversary of India’s most famous hunter, Lakhpat Singh Rawat logged his 16th kill in the last five years — all man-eaters that had prowled the jungles of Kumaon and Garhwal — and this one, a leopard that had claimed 16 lives within four months.
Today, Rawat is the state’s most trusted hunter of man-eaters since Corbett killed a terrifying senile leopard in Rudraprayag, one that had killed 126 people over a period of eight years.
Says Rawat, “No one can come close to Corbett’s status. Remember, he killed man-eaters when something as basic as searchlights did not exist. Imagine, shooting in the moonlight. Also, to call him a hunter is to show ignorance. He was a conservationist and a lover of nature.”
But for D N Femwal, DFO of Pauri Garhwal, Rawat is like godsend. “I have not seen a better hunter in my career here. I hired hunters from outside to kill man-eaters but all of them failed.”
It was in 2001 that Rawat, a teacher under the Sarvsiksha Abhiyaan scheme, logged his first kill — another man-eater leopard that had terrorised the area of Ghairsen.
“The leopard killed 12 students of my school. Our repeated pleas to the government to provide some security proved futile. I wasn’t a hunter but I had practised rifle-shooting as a sport. So in desperation, I applied for a permit to kill this man-eater,” says Rawat.
However, his lack of credentials meant that the Chief Wildlife Conservator’s office was hesitant to grant him a permit. It finally came through after expert parties and hunting teams failed. And six months later, on March 15, 2002, he shot the leopard, which had become notorious by then as the man-eater of Aadibadri.
Says Hari, a resident of Ghairsen, “For us, he is larger than life. His success rate is hundred per cent. He has never killed any innocent animal. When a man-eater comes to the region, the entire life suffers. Children stop going to school and even women don’t venture out.”
Rawat’s heroic status is understandable — data provided by the state wildlife department reveals that in the last 12 years, leopards have killed 101 people in the region and have seriously hurt another 291. The animal seems to be especially severe on children — from January 2006 to June 2007, leopards have attacked 87 kids.
Barely a month ago, a four-year-old girl was taken away by a leopard in Rudraprayag’s Jakholi village. Says Rawat, “In the earlier days, it was an injury or old age which forced a leopard to become a man-eater. But today, I see perfectly healthy animals resorting to eating human flesh. The reason behind this seems to be a drastic decline in forest cover. For example, a large area ofjungle was submerged during the construction of the Tehri dam, and leopards from this area migrated to other places. Earlier, even if a leopard strayed into human area, it would target a cow or a goat. But now hardly anyone keeps animals, so the beast targets children.”
Officially, a leopard is declared a man-eater when around three human killings are attributed to it. In such a case, the government issues a permit to Rawat, which expires after the animal is killed. “After an animal is killed, a track is kept for a period of three months. If no more killings are attributed to him, the man-eater is declared dead. Now, the government also conducts DNA tests and post-mortems on the carcass,” says Rawat.
These days, as soon as a death by a man-eater is reported, Rawat takes off with his motley team of village youth — the wait can result in endless vigil in the dark over a decoy or following a fruitless trail of pugmarks and faeces. And in the end, the financial benefit is minimal: Rs 7,000, in Rawat’s case, for killing 16 man-eaters.
If only, says Rawat, the government chips in. “They are sitting in Dehradun and are not aware of the actual situation. For example, in one of the permits they issued me recently they had restricted the area of my shooting to 1.5 km, which is ridiculous. A leopard killed by me in Champawat operated over a radius of 60 km. The officialdom shows extreme naiveté about the behaviour of an animal so clever that it recognises the noise of our jeep and changes the area once he notices the arrival of a hunting team. Also, the rewards announced by government are never paid. For the last two tigers I killed in Kirtinagar and Pauri, I should be getting Rs 72,000 as per the government’s announcements. But I am yet to get that.”
News Source: http://www.indianexpress.com
