By Shishir Prashant 
PrashantNews
A woman in Pabo area of Pauri district in Uttarakhand was injured in a bear attack on Wednesday (Feb 4). She was airlifted to AIIMS Rishikesh for medical treatment. She is now recovering.
Elsewhere in Uttarakhand where leopards, tigers and elephants are still attacking people, there is at least some respite from bear attacks in the Garhwal hills especially after the heavy snowfall on Jan 23. Reason: It is presumed that bears have gone into hibernation with snowfall being a big contributory factor.
Bears have refused to sleep this winter season as they were continuing their reign of terror in the hills mainly due to the scanty snowfall along with some other factors.
As the hills of Uttarakhand experienced bountiful of snowfall during the past one fortnight, bears have found a great solace and finally gone into their caves for deep slumber or hibernation.
“Yes, it is true that we are now witnessing very few bear attacks which amply indicate that bears have finally gone into hibernation,” said Ranjan Kumar Mishra, the Head of Forest Force (HoFF) in the hill state.
Earlier, top officials of state forest department had expressed hope that the bears would enter into hibernation phase in the beginning of December. But in the past two months, bears have launched many attacks in different parts of the hills mainly in Garhwal region.
Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami had also spoken to Union Forest Minister Bhupender Yadav and sought additional resources and help to control such incidents.
The forest department has claimed that it heightened the surveillance in most of the vulnerable zones to check the bear attacks.
In view of the raging attacks and political pressure, the state forest department has decided to conduct an extensive study on the behaviour of the black Himalayan bears to find a long-term solution. Experts immediately welcomed the move saying such studies are always helpful in the long-term. “We have done studies in Kashmir on bears in the past. But no such study was done in Uttarakhand. This is a good decision,” said Dr S Sathyakumar, a wildlife expert.
Five people were killed and 80-90 injured in different attacks by bears in the hill state this year, said top forest officials. But since September-October, a sudden spurt of attacks by bears has shocked people.
Multiple factors were leading to such conflicts between bears and human beings which include climate change, dry winter, garbage littering, increased human interference and shrinking food availability.
These above factors had adversely affected the hibernation period of bears due to which the animal was disturbed, experts said.