Is sloth bear headed tiger way?

Irish documentary film maker Collin Johnson has been working in Ranthambhore since 1999. ‘‘There was a time when I saw sloth bears at every junction. On this trip, I have not seen even one during the whole month,’’ said Johnson.

And you don’t have to look far to see where they have gone. Last October, during the much-hyped raids that the police conducted at the houses of poachers Devi Singh, Kesra and Prithvi, sloth bear claws were found at Prithvi’s house. In February, 2005, a raid was conducted by an NGO in collaboration with the Forest Department at the house of Kailash, a moghia in Bhavpur village on the northern side of the national park. There they found sloth bear claws, gun powder, weapons and tiger meat.

‘‘Bears eat termites and wild berries,” Johnson said. “This year, a lot of termites have been found in the Lahpur area where the bear population once used to be quite dense. Also, the berry kernels that could once be seen all over the forest are missing. That itself is evidence that the bears are dwindling.”

Raghuvir Singh Shekhawat, Deputy Field Director of the Ranthambore National Park, denies that Ranthambore has seen a rise in sloth bear poaching over the past two years. ‘‘The decline in their numbers can be due to the drought in 2002-03,” he said. “There were many casualties then. But no poaching has been reported here in the past two years.”

WHY SLOTH BEAR

Sloth bears are hunted mainly for their claws, gall bladder, bile, bones and teeth. ‘‘The gall bladder of an adult bear is used in traditional Chinese medicine to cure rheumatism. Soup prepared from the bear’s paws and also the paws of cubs are delicacies in South-East Asian countries, especially in Hong Kong,’’ said Kartick Satyanarayan of Wildlife SOS, an NGO that has conducted raids to catch poachers. ‘‘Poachers mainly hunt for cubs as they are more profitable. A cub can be bought for as low as Rs 200, but an adult bear selling at the Nepal border would cost from Rs 70,000 to Rs 1 lakh,’’ adds Satyanarayan.

— ENS