Aasha Khosa/New Delhi

Syed Mushtaq Ahmed Parsa, a retired wildlife official of the J&K government, was shocked to see the images of a big pack of wild boar – estimated to be a herd of 200-400 animals - plundering apple trees and standing crops in Hajin, a village some 40 km northwest of capital Srinagar city, posted on social media.

The animals had damaged the trees –debarked most of them – and attacked a woman who was tending to her farm in the village. “This is unbelievable. It cannot happen so suddenly more so when Kashmir is not a natural habitat for the animal.” Parsa said.

Speaking with Awaz-the voice, Parsa who hails from North Kashmir’s Banipora area and lives in the capital Srinagar, said “Such unnatural phenomenon can only happen with human intervention and not naturally.” He feels this animal has been introduced by humans but has no clue by whom and where.

Sources said a report prepared by the officials in charge of wildlife conservation in North Kashmir and with Lt Governor Manoj Sinha says this animal has found its way into Kashmir via the Uri border. Its route has been mapped as reaching Sumbal via Baramulla town.

In all likelihood, the animal has been introduced from across the Line of control deliberately. Wildlife experts say that wild boar is also not a natural inhabitant of the Alpine forests of the POK.

The report prepared by a team of wildlife researchers says that wild boar had come to the northern part of Kashmir after crossing the line of control that divides the Kashmir region of Jammu and Kashmir from the Pakistan-occupied part of J&K.

Sources said the POK areas have been seeing an unprecedented rise in the population of the wild boar and there is a good possibility that these have been either pushed into or have come on their own into India in search of food and survival.

“Wild boar lives in desert areas, grasslands on shrub forests since it and cannot survive in a thick cover of the alpine jungles found in the hilly areas of Kashmir,’ sources said. 

Deputy Commissioner, Bandipora, Dr. Owais Ahmed told Aawz-the voice that the population of wild boards had increased dramatically in recent years. “Right now we are educating the villagers on how to keep this animal at bay and are also working on a long-term strategy.”

The government departments have also installed cages to catch the animal and relocate them to forest areas.

The pack of wild boars has damaged the trees in orchards and standing paddy crops in Uri Limber, Lachipora, Balwar, and Sumbal. The animal herd usually comes in the night and runs over the fields.

According to local media reports, a 48-year-old homemaker of Sumbal was injured in her stomach when a wild boar attacked her in panic. The woman mistook the animal for a wild buffalo, for she had never seen such an animal.

Experts say the wild boar is not a natural inhabitant of Kashmir and it was briefly introduced by former Monarchs for the game in the wildlife sanctuary of Dacchigam in the mid-ninetieth century.

However, for the lack of ideal conditions for its survival, it become extinct and as per the wildlife census of 1984, not even one official sighting of the wild boar in the valley was reported.

However, an odd animal was sighted in Dacchigam later a decade ago. But more astonishing was their sighting in north Kashmir in recent years. The animal procreates like rabbits; in one liter, the female of the specie can produce up to seven babies.

Al Jazeera quoted Rashid Yahya Naqash the region’s wildlife warden, on this issue. He said, “The sightings were restricted to forested areas, but the animal is now frequently venturing closer to human landscapes, especially in northern Kashmir, where we are getting frequent reports of damage to standing crops.”

Al Jazeera report used copious references to the politics between India and Pakistan over Kashmir in its report though the issue is about the man-animal conflict. It also quoted an unknown source as blaming “abrogation of article 370 as one of the reasons for the government’s inability to contain the intruder wild animal.”

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“A detailed study is required to shed light on how climate change has impacted the revival of wild boars in Kashmir,” wildlife officials said.