Certificate - Etheses - Saurashtra University

The studies conducted in India and several other countries also showed crop
preference by bears; the nature of crop damage and preference for different
phenological stages of crops were similar. In the Great Himalayan National Park,
India, crop damage by Asiatic black and brown bears was found to be of varying
extent and different parts of the crops and phenological stages were preferred by bears
(Chauhan, 2003). Sloth bears were found to damage sugarcane and groundnut crops
(Iswariah, 1984; Rajpurohit and Krausman, 2000 and Bargali et al., 2005). Crop
depredation by sloth bear was common in many states. Sloth bears were found to raid
maize, sweet potato, sugarcane and peanut crops (Laurie and Seidensticker, 1977 and
Prater, 1980). In other countries also, bears have been reported to cause extensive
damage to agricultural crops (Peyton, 1980; Vaughan et al., 1989; Servheen, 1990;
Conover and Decker, 1991; Reid et al., 1991 and Stowell and Willing, 1992). The
North American bears were known to use apiaries, crops, orchard fruits, garbage, and
livestock for food (Ambrose and sanders, 1978; Knight and Judd, 1983; Garshelis et
al., 1999). In Japan, Asiatic black bears were reported to raid crops, orchards and fish
farms and caused extensive damage (Huygens and Hayashi, 1999).
Damage to agricultural crops by brown bears showed marked monthly variations.
This might be due to availability of different phenological stages of the crops and
preference for the plant parts as food. Brown bears were found to damage wheat,
maize and barley grains mainly by its trampling and feeding activities. Wheat and
maize plants were trampled more that eaten. This period coincided with the fruiting
phase or seed formation stage of these crops, which were preferred by the bears.
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