Nepal's last known two dancing bears rescued: officials

Yahoo – AFP, December 24, 2017

Two rescued bears are transported from a police station in Nepal's southern
Rautahat district to the Parsa Wildlife Reserve, as seen in a photo taken on
December 20, 2017 and released by World Animal Protection (AFP Photo/Handout)

Kathmandu (AFP) - Nepali authorities have rescued the country's last known "dancing bears", officials said Sunday, in a major step towards ending the medieval tradition of abuse of the beasts for entertainment.

The Himalayan nation banned the practice of performing bears back in 1973 but the tradition, an occupation for some street performer communities, lingered on in parts of its southern region.

Police and animal charities said they spent more than a year hunting the captors of the two sloth bears before they were traced to the Rautahat district near the border with India on Tuesday.

"We received information that they were in our area and managed to rescue the bears," district police chief Yagya Binod Pokharel told AFP.

Dancing bears are captured and bought as cubs and taught to dance on their hind legs. Their snouts are pierced with a heated rod so they can be controlled by the tug of a rope or chain.

Animal activists said the rescued bears -- 19-year-old male Rangila and Sridevi, a 17-year-old female -- showed signs of trauma such as cowering, pacing and paw-sucking.

"We are thrilled that the last two known Nepali dancing bears have been rescued from their lifetime of suffering... our hard effort and dedication has helped to bring an end to this illegal tradition in Nepal," said Manoj Gautam of the Jane Goodall Institute of Nepal, which worked with the police and World Animal Protection to rescue them.

The bears were located by tracking the owners' mobile phones.

The bears are being cared for by the Parsa Wildlife Reserve, Nepal's largest such reserve.

Dancing bears on the Indian subcontinent date back to the 13th century, when trainers belonging to the Muslim Qalandar tribe enjoyed royal patronage and performed before the rich and powerful.

In neighbouring India, the practice came to an end in 2012, decades after an official ban in 1972.

Sloth bears, a critically endangered species, are found in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan. But shrinking habitats and rampant poaching have reduced their numbers, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The IUCN has put them on its red list of threatened species and their total estimated population is 20,000.

They can grow up to 1.8 metres (six feet) tall and weigh up to 140 kilograms (310 pounds).

Nepali authorities have rescued the country's last known "dancing bears", officials said, ending the medieval tradition of abuse of the beasts for entertainment pic.twitter.com/is8iQktJIH

— AFP news agency (@AFP) December 25, 2017

'Tiger heavyweight' Nepal hosts anti-poaching summit

Yahoo – AFP, 1 Feb 2015

Nepal's success in turning tiger-fearing villagers into their protectors has seen 

none of the endangered cats killed for almost three years, offering key lessons

for an anti-poaching summit opening shortly in Kathmandu (AFP Photo)

Kathmandu (AFP) - Nepal's success in turning tiger-fearing villagers into their protectors has seen none of the endangered cats killed for almost three years, offering key lessons for an anti-poaching summit opening in Kathmandu on Monday.

Experts from conservation group WWF, which is co-hosting the conference with Nepal's government, said the Himalayan nation was a "tiger heavyweight" in the battle to fight poaching and protect them from extinction.

"Nepal and India are our tiger heavyweights leading the region. India excels at recovering tiger numbers and Nepal at zero poaching," said Mike Baltzer of WWF Tigers Alive Initiative.

Hundreds of young volunteers act as

 unofficial guards for Nepal's national parks,

 home to 198 tigers and 534 rhinos -- both

 listed as critically endangered species by

WWF (AFP Photo)

India in January reported a 30 percent jump in tiger numbers since 2010, while Nepal saw numbers rise almost two thirds between 2009 and 2013. Its last reported poaching incident was in March 2012.

Decades of trafficking and habitat destruction have slashed the global tiger population from 100,000 a century ago to approximately 3,000, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Tikaram Adhikari, director general of Nepal's department of national parks and wildlife conservation, said an initiative to convince villagers to inform on poachers and pay them half of tourism revenues had paid huge dividends.

"Earlier, some villagers even protected poachers because they didn't want tigers attacking them. We heard them out, built electric fences, focused on increasing tourism and gave them a big cut of the revenues," Adhikari said.

"Now they know the benefits of protecting tigers and they want to help. The survival of the animal is a matter of prestige for them," he told AFP.

Hundreds of young volunteers act as unofficial guards for Nepal's national parks, home to 198 tigers and 534 rhinos -- both listed as critically endangered species by WWF.

A tip-off by local villagers meant police were able to arrest four poachers less than a week after they allegedly killed a tiger in 2012, Adhikari said.

Nepal has twice been recognised for going a full year with no poaching incidents involving tigers or rhinos.

The impoverished country's success in combating wildlife crime sends a clear signal that "anti-poaching cannot be left only to conservationists," WWF Nepal's Diwakar Chapagain said.

"We have to involve people on the ground -- volunteers and local law enforcement must have a stake in the process. Otherwise conservation is not sustainable," Chapagain told AFP.

"Spending money and running awareness campaigns is not enough. You need boots on the ground and that's where local communities and law enforcement play an important role in cracking down on poachers," he said.

The five-day anti-poaching summit, which opens Monday evening, will see experts and officials from 13 countries meet to launch an Asia-wide push to fight wildlife crime.

Countries with tiger populations -- Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam -- in 2010 launched a plan to double their numbers by 2022.

Related Article:

Tiger nations to set up anti-poaching network

Stranded trekkers in storm-hit Nepal region 'safe'

Yahoo – AFP, October 18, 2014

Stranded trekkers in storm-hit region safe: Nepal official

Kathmandu (AFP) - All trekkers left stranded by a major snowstorm in Nepal's Himalayas are safe, officials said Saturday, with the focus now shifting to the recovery of bodies four days after the disaster killed at least 32 people.

Nepalese army choppers circled the upper reaches of the popular Annapurna Circuit trekking region to locate bodies, while officials flew in a team of experts from Kathmandu to assist with retrieval.

Tuesday's unseasonal storm, which hit at the height of the trekking season triggering avalanches, caught hikers unaware on their way up to an exposed high mountain pass, and killed at least 17 tourists.

"We understand that all remaining trekkers in the region are safe," said Binay Acharya of the Trekking Agencies' Association of Nepal (TAAN), an industry body organising rescue efforts.

"We have not received any further calls for rescue or for information about stranded people," Acharya told AFP.

Emergency workers have so far rescued 385 people from the affected area, according to police.

"Since Wednesday, we have rescued 385 people, including 180 foreigners," said police official Harikrishna KC.

Rescuers Friday recovered the body of a Nepalese porter, taking the death toll to 32, including 24 hikers, guides and porters on the trekking circuit, three yak herders as well as five climbers on a mountain in the area.

Thousands of people head to the Annapurna Circuit every October, when weather conditions are usually clear.

However, the region has seen unusually heavy snowfall this week sparked by Cyclone Hudhud, which slammed into India's east coast Sunday.

The disaster prompted Nepal's Prime Minister Sushil Koirala to announce plans to set up a weather warning system across the mountainous country, which relies heavily on tourism revenues from climbing and trekking.

The Annapurna Circuit is particularly popular among tourists, and has come to be known as the "apple pie" trek for the food served at the small lodges, known as teahouses, that line the route.

The snowstorm is one of Nepal's worst trekking disasters since 1995 when a huge avalanche struck the camp of a Japanese trekking group in the Mount Everest region, killing 42 people including 13 Japanese.

The Himalayan nation has suffered multiple avalanches this year, with 16 guides killed in April in the deadliest accident to hit Mount Everest, forcing an unprecedented shutdown of the world's highest peak.

India evacuates Bihar villages after landslide in Nepal

Authorities in India have begun evacuating villagers after efforts to clear a landslide in Nepal sparked fears of flash floods. The landslide early Saturday killed at least eight people and buried dozens of homes.

Deutsche Welle, 2 Aug 2014

The landslide created a mud dam blocking the Sunkoshi river, which flows into India's Bihar state as the Kosi. Indian officials say water levels have risen above the danger mark and authorities fear that water could inundate hundreds of Bihar's villages as Nepal attempts to clears the debris.

"We are repeatedly appealing to villagers settled along the Kosi embankments to flee to safer places as soon as possible," Vysaji, the principal secretary in Bihar's disaster management department, told reporters late Saturday. "The blasting of blockage in river could result in a 10-meter (33-foot) high wall of water sweeping down Kosi into Bihar which could bring trouble," added Vysaji, who goes only by one name.

Nepal's army announced that it had started opening the dam by setting off two controlled blasts and that water had started to drain out slowly. Indian authorities, taking no chances, have put eight districts under flood alert, and begun evacuations in the districts of Supaul, Madhubani and Saharsa. Authorities have also opened sluice gates at a barrage along the Kosi at the border, deployed rescue teams and sent more than 200 boats to evacuate villagers.

The disaster preparations come just days after a landslide killed dozens of people in India.

'We are looking'

The landslide hit early Saturday in Nepal, burying two dozen homes before dumping mud and stones into the river, northeast of the capital, Kathmandu. Officials have recovered eight bodies from the debris of dozens of collapsed houses so far, and police have warned that the death toll will likely rise.

At least 40 people were injured, four of them critically. More than 100 people remain missing, and at least 5,000 have been displaced.

"The landslide has caused huge damage," Bharat Bahadur Bohara, a police officer, told the news agency Reuters. "We cannot make any estimates of the number of deaths now. We are looking for other people who might be trapped."

Nepalese authorities have also asked residents in downstream villages to evacuate as the mud dam could collapse at any time.

mkg/hc (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)

India Landslide Rescuers Press On Despite ‘Very Slim Chances’ As Toll Hits 73

Jakarta Globe – AFP, Aug 02, 2014

Rescuers search for landslide victims in torrential rain. (AFP Photo)

Rescuers continued digging Saturday despite ‘very slim chances’ of finding any more people alive in the mud and debris from a major landslide in western India, where 73 have been killed.

Seventy–three bodies and eight survivors have now been pulled from the site where a village once stood in a remote part of western Maharashtra state, but incessant rains, marshy terrain and strong winds have hampered rescue efforts.

“Whole night the operation was on. We were able to recover 73 dead, eight alive,” Alok Awasthi, commandant of the National Disaster Response Force [NDRF], told NDTV news channel adding half the work had been completed.

“Around 80 people are still feared trapped… chances of survival are very very slim.”

The NDRF has said about 160 people were thought to have been living in the dozens of houses damaged when a hill gave way and cascaded onto their village of Malin.

The force, which mobilised 378 rescue workers to help with the search, worked into the night and entered its fourth day in a desperate hunt for any more survivors after lights powered by portable generators were set up.

The rescue operation could continue another two days due to difficult conditions, state relief and rehabilitation minister Patangrao Kadam said, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

Grieving relatives have been rushing to identify bodies and attending mass cremations at their village after losing whole families as tonnes of earth and trees came crashing down onto the homes below on July 30.

“I’m shell-shocked… our roots [at Malin] have been wiped out in an instant,” Vilas Jhanjre, a factory worker, told The Hindu newspaper after he failed to find his parents’ bodies at the wiped–out village and nearby hospital.

“Life ceases to have meaning without one’s parents.”

Dramatic footage of the landslide showed a chunk of hillside giving way with a cascade of mud, rocks and trees, sending up clouds of dust below.

Disaster experts and Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan have blamed the landslide on deforestation and construction work on the hills.

While India’s annual rains are a lifeline for the economy, flooding and building collapses are frequent during the monsoon season.

A landslide in the eastern state of Odisha on Thursday cut off about a dozen villages, while another in the northern Himalayan state of Uttarakhand killed at least five people.

Uttarakhand was hit by a landslide and flooding disaster last year that is thought to have killed nearly 6,000 pilgrims, tourists and others.

A separate landslide struck a village in northeastern Nepal Saturday killing at least seven people with dozens missing.

Agence France-Presse

2,000 Nepalese tree-huggers claim world record

Yahoo – AFP, 5 June 2014

Nepalese school children hug trees in a bid as they celebrate World Environment

 Day in the forest of Gokarna village, on the outskirts of Kathmandu, on June 5,

2014. (Photo by Prakash Mathema / AFP)

More than two thousand people including lawmakers and students hugged trees in a park outside Nepal's capital Kathmandu on Thursday to claim a new record on World Environment Day.

After organisers sounded a horn, eager students, many wearing their school uniforms, clasped tree trunks and held tight for two minutes as Nepalese musicians beat traditional drums.

"We had a very high turnout. In the end, 2,001 people hugged trees together... to claim a new world record," said Thaneswar Guragai, one of the event's organisers.

Among the tree huggers was 24-year-old student Tripti Prajapti who told AFP: "When you hug a tree you feel connected... even as an individual you can contribute to protect and conserve trees."

Twenty Nepalese lawmakers also turned up to support the campaigners.

Nepalese school children hug trees as they celebrate World Environment Day

 in the forest of Gokarna village, on the outskirts of Kathmandu, on June 5, 2014

 (Photo by Prakash Mathema / AFP)

"We came here to encourage the kids. Just hugging a tree may not make a difference but... it raises awareness," said lawmaker Krishna Bahadur Chhantel Thapa.

Organisers will now submit their claim for a new record to Guinness World Records, which is expected to rule on it within two months.

The current world record for the world's largest tree-hugging event was set in July 2013, when 936 people gathered in the US state of Oregon.

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"Soul Communication" - Feb 22-23, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version Part 1, Text version Part 2)

"... Some of you will walk into the forest and you'll feel it. It surrounds you with its love and beauty. Gaia speaks to you. The trees are pushing out oxygen with a benevolent system of photosynthesis. The plants give you oxygen and you give them carbon dioxide. What a system! Look around. Science will say that system happened by accident - a random occurrence. Do you believe that? What a beautiful system! The trees themselves know who you are. You walk into the forest and you feel it hug you, but perhaps another is next to you who came with a chainsaw. They don't care and they don't feel it. To them, the forest is only a resource. What's the difference between the two of you? There's no judgment here, I'm just asking you. What do you think the difference is? The answer: You're letting multidimensional awareness in and they are not. You see, you are becoming more aware of multidimensional soul communication. In this case, it's your enormous soul energy communicating with the other parts of the planet who are also multidimensional.

When you make the decision that it's OK to feel this energy, it will be there. Most of humanity so far has not made that decision. They block it. The law is this - this communication will come to you only with your allowance. The moment you open the door of allowance, you may begin to feel it. Those are our rules.

It's not just allowance for communication from the creative source, but also from an amazing number of what we would call other benevolent energies. These others are represented by groups with names that you have given them. They also cannot get through to you unless you allow it. That's their rule as well. Your names for them are Pleiadians, Arcturians, Sirians, Hathors or those from Orion. There are many more, but unless you open to the possibility of them, they can't communicate either.

Most of humanity will stand next to you as you communicate and think you're not well. That's the way it looks to them. Listen, dear ones, the benevolent groups who represent your DNA essence [your seed biology] and who know who you are are many. The amount of help you have on this planet is staggering, yet the majority of humanity will not allow awareness of it or let the possibility into their reality.. ..."

"Soul Communication" - Feb 22-23, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version Part 1, Text version Part 2)

"... Universal communication: When you walk into the forest and the trees talk to you, what is that about? Gaia speaks to you! What does that voice sound like? Am I getting through to you? Do you understand what I'm saying?

You are able to hear these things in your own way, but none of them are synaptic. Are the trees in trouble? Are they crying? Perhaps they are celebrating? All of this information is available to those who can hear it.

"Kryon, is it true that in the forest there are what you would call devas?" Here's my answer: Are you kidding? Of course! Yes! You are asking what they are. They are multidimensional aspects of Gaia. I love how Humans deal with multidimensional energies. They "3D-ize" them. When Human Beings cannot understand a multidimensional energy, they make them entities, dress them [put outfits on them in their minds], give them names, and put them in Human movies. They're beautiful! You know they are, and they're everywhere. Go into the forest and they'll talk to you. Sit down in the grass and let them communicate with you. They're part of the energy soup that is Gaia, which is Mother Nature, the personality that is the love of God in nature.

Dear one, you're not going to receive bad things from a deva. You're not going to get bad information from hugging a tree. You know that, don't you? What does this tell you about how Gaia feels about you? These are just a few things when it comes to the subject of communication from others to you. ..."

Leonardo DiCaprio boosts Nepal bid to save tigers

Google – AFP, 21 November 2013

Leonardo Dicaprio speaks during a movie premiere on November 1, 2013 

in Los Angales (Getty/AFP/File, Jason Merritt)

Washington — A foundation set up by actor Leonardo DiCaprio pitched in $3 million Thursday to save tigers in Nepal, whose plan to double the big cats' population has shown success.

The "Titanic" heartthrob warned that "time is running out" for tigers, whose global population in the wild has dwindled to an estimated 3,200 after years of poaching and habitat loss.

The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation channeled the $3 million through the World Wildlife Fund environmental group for improvements in the Terai Arc Landscape, a stretch of ecologically diverse protected lands bordering India.

"I am hopeful this grant will help them exceed the goal of doubling the number of these noble creatures in the wild," DiCaprio said in a statement.

The grant will fund improvements in border posts and more sophisticated tools to monitor poaching.

Nepal has set its goal of doubling the big cats' population by 2022, the next year of the tiger in the Chinese zodiac.

Nepal's government said in July that its population of Royal Bengal tigers in the wild has soared 64 percent to 198 in just four years.

DiCaprio, who stars in Martin Scorsese's upcoming film "The Wolf of Wall Street," in May led an art auction that raised $38.8 million for environmental charity work.

'Yak insurance' plan saving Nepal's snow leopard

Google - AFP, Frankie Taggart (AFP), 26 December 2012

This handout photograph taken by a remote camera trap shows a rare

snow leopard in Nepal (WWF Nepal/AFP)

KATHMANDU — The remorse felt by Himali Chungda Sherpa after he killed three snow leopard cubs in retaliation for his lost cattle inspired him to set up a scheme to prevent other herders from doing the same.

Sherpa lost his cattle near Ghunsa village at the base of Mount Kangchenjunga on the Nepal-India border, later finding their remains in a cave beside three sleeping snow leopard cubs.

The Nepalese herder put the cubs in a sack and threw them into the river, finding their bodies the next day.

"From that night onwards the mother snow leopard started crying from the mountain for her cubs, and my cattle were crying for the loss of their calves.

"I realised how big a sin I had committed and promised myself that I would never do such a thing in the future."

This handout photograph released by WWF Nepal shows a snow leopard

 in a conservation area (WWF Nepal/AFP)

Four years ago Sherpa, 48, founded with other locals an insurance plan for livestock that conservationists say is deterring herders from killing snow leopards that attack their animals.

In doing so the scheme has given hope for the endangered cat, whose numbers across the mountains of 12 countries in south and central Asia are thought to have declined by 20 percent over the past 16 years.

Under the scheme, herders pay in 55 rupees ($1.50) a year for each of their hairy yaks, the vital pack animal that is also kept for milk and meat, and are paid 2,500 rupees for any animal killed by the endangered cat.

"The (Himalayan) communities have been able to pay out compensation for more than 200 animals since the scheme started," WWF Nepal conservation director Ghana Gurung told reporters at a presentation in the capital Kathmandu.

"The community members are the ones that monitor this, they are the ones who do the patrolling and they are the ones who verify the kills."

The global snow leopard population is estimated at just 4,080-6,590 adults according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which lists the animal as "endangered" on its red list of threatened species.

Experts believe just 300 to 500 adult snow leopards survive in Nepal

(Lehtikuva/AFP/File, Jarno Mela)

Experts believe just 300 to 500 adults survive in Nepal, and few can claim ever to have seen the secretive, solitary "mountain ghost", which lives 5,000 to 6,000 metres (16,500 to 20,000 feet) above sea level.

Despite its name, it is not a close relative of the leopard and has much more in common genetically with the tiger, though it is thought to have a placid temperament.

"There has never been a case of a snow leopard attacking a human," Gurung said of the animal, revered for its thick grey patterned pelt.

It does, however, have a taste for sheep, goats and other livestock essential for the livelihoods of farmers and is often killed by humans either as a preventative measure or in revenge for the deaths of their animals.

WWF Nepal revealed details of its insurance scheme in filmed interviews shown at the recent Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival.

Sherpa now campaigns to convince Himalayan farmers that killing snow leopards is wrong, but has been frequently told they need to kill the animal to protect their livelihoods.

"I swear if I can catch a snow leopard. They rob our animals and our source of livelihood," herder Chokyab Bhuttia told the WWF.

The insurance plan, which also covers sheep and goats, was set up with 1.2 million rupees donated by the University of Zurich.

Since the Kangchenjunga Conservation Area Snow Leopard Insurance plan was launched four years ago no snow leopard is thought to have been killed in retaliation for preying on livestock since.

Light from a sunrise is cast on Mount Kangchenjunga on December 22,

2012, as seen from the Indian side (AFP/File, Diptendu Dutta)

Locals, who count the number of cattle attacked as well as tracks, fecal pellets and scratches in the ground, believe snow leopard numbers have significantly increased.

"There is now an awareness among people that the snow leopard is an endangered animal and we have to protect it. The insurance policy has made people more tolerant to the loss of their livestock," Sherpa said.

He believes protecting the snow leopard is vital to boosting the economy in an area which gets just a few hundred trekkers a year, compared with 74,000 in Annapurna.

"If a tourist sees a snow leopard and takes a picture of it there will be publicity of our region and more tourists will come," Sherpa said.

Evidence of the scheme's benefits will remain anecdotal until the publication next year of the results of a wide-ranging camera trapping survey.

But locals are optimistic about the animal's future, according to Tsheten Dandu Sherpa, chairman of the Kangchenjunga Conservation Area Management Council.

"In this area there was never any poaching of snow leopards for trade. They were killed only as a retaliatory act by livestock owners," he said.

"Now with this insurance policy there will definitely be protection of the snow leopard and its numbers will increase."