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Thursday, March 28, 2024

More than 60 cattle killed by snow leopard in Hunza’s Shimshal Valley

GILGIT – A snow Leopard killed more than 60 domestic animals in Shimshal valley of Hunza, officials said Sunday.

According to the locals, the incident occurred in the Dastgarban area of the northern valley, the four-legged carnivore attacked the sheep while they were being taken to a nearby pasture.

Residents while speaking with a private news channel told that this is not the first time for such an attack as many similar attacks have been taken place on livestock within a short time. The distressed villagers have another time appealed to the government to provide them financial assistance as their livelihoods depend on livestock.

The villagers of the northernmost region reportedly approached the wildlife officials but all in vain as no action has been taken despite multiple attacks and killings of cattle.

Negligence of the wildlife department and failures of local administration to compensate the affected families over the loss of cattle forced the residents of remote areas to kill these vulnerable animals.

Earlier in March this year, a three-year-old leopard was killed by a mob in Malkot village of Abbottabad. The charged mob attacked the big cat with sticks and stones after the beast injured a senior resident who was later shifted to a nearby medical facility.

The experts need to collect data on predators’ attacks on cattle, assess the attitude of the herders towards the rare snow leopard, raise awareness among locals, assess the conflict level, and develop the conservation plan based on the findings or else there will no other option rather than loss of poor villagers other than the extinction of leopards which is expected to decline about 10 percent by the year 2040.

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