Certificate - Etheses - Saurashtra University

indicated that herders who maintained close contact with their sheep, keeping their
herds in tight bands, experienced lower predation losses than those who allowed their
herds to wonder freely.
In the study area, a few times migratory herders eliminated nuisance brown bears in
order to protect their livestock, which was found to be one of the serious limiting
factors for brown bear conservation. Photograph 10 shows carcass of brown bear
killed by shepherds in Kugti wildlife sanctuary in retaliation to livestock depredation.
In Zanskar and Suru valley, Ladakh, brown bear-human conflicts were fairly
common, and villagers often resorted to retaliatory killing of bears when livestock
losses were severe (Sathyakumar, 2002). Krott (1961) reported that bear population in
Italy had been reduced to very low levels because of poaching by shepherds.
In Kugti wildlife sanctuary, most of the agricultural areas were found to be located far
away from village and nearer to the forest. There was varying extent of damage to
agricultural and horticultural crops depending on locations from the village. The rabi
crops susceptible to damage were wheat and barley, and the kharif crops were maize,
phulan, bharesh, rajmash, mash, potato and peas. Among these crops, brown bears
extensively damaged wheat tender leaves and grains, maize corn, and young shoots
and grains of barley, phulen and bharesh crops. Damage to wheat, maize, barley,
bharesh and phulan crops was highest during the seeding stage and seed formation
stage when corn in spikes developed. Seeds of pea and rajmash were also consumed
by bears. Brown bears might have preference for wheat, maize and barley grains and
damage these crops mainly by trampling and feeding activities. Wheat and maize
plants were trampled more that eaten. Thus the seed formation stage of these crops
was found highly susceptible to damage.
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