On Saturday morning, December 20, four livestock belonging to Bhagiman Gurung of Hangdewa Bungkulung, Phungling Municipality-9, including two goats, a she-goat and a lamb, were found dead. Some were found with only their blood drained, while others were found with their stomachs ripped open, leading the villagers to suspect that they were killed by wild animals.

The Division Forest Office staff was informed on the suspicion that the bear was coming down from the lake towards Aul and would cause damage to the livestock in this way. The locals said that they had observed the damage to the livestock and requested for help as if it was a bear, it would cause more damage.

The same sequence repeated itself on Sunday morning. However, not on Bhagima, but on Bhim Kumar Gurung and Narayan Prasad Gurung. Bhim Kumar's two goats and Narayan Prasad's one and a half sheep were attacked and damaged. It was natural for the damage to occur in the same area at night to terrify the locals.

This sequence repeated itself on Monday. Padam Gurung, Radhika Gurung and Narayan Bhandari entered the pen and attacked the goats and sheep. On Monday, Radhika and Narayan saw it directly and confirmed that it was a bear. After the goat in the cage cried, Radhika, who was shining a torch light from the second floor of the house, started shouting, and the bear came down.

She said, ‘The black one was big, when I started crying, it slowly came down without running away. Then everyone in the village gathered and tried to treat the goat that it attacked.’ That same night, they reached Narayan Prasad’s house, which is five hundred meters away from here, injured a mother goat and took a kid to the cardamom garden and found it killed and eaten.

After the goat in the cage cried, when they looked at Narayan Prasad with a torch, the bear’s eyes lit up, so he was forced to enter the house for safety. He confirmed that it was a bear.

On Tuesday, the Division Forest Office went to the village with a bear cage. Since Narayan Prasad had about a dozen goats and he could not even move much, the villagers and the Division Forest staff assumed that he would come to the same pen in the evening.

Since the bear fell into the pen, it was decided to keep it safely in a vehicle and take it to another place. The staff and locals firmly connected the goat pen with the bear pen and also placed a pen for the bear. According to Lalit Kumar Yadav, an officer of the Division Forest Office, the goats were kept in the goat pen as usual, a pen for the bear was placed at the entrance to the pen, and the expectation was that after seeing the goat, the bear would enter through that path and be trapped. Similarly, strong management was done. However, the bear did not return to Narayan's pen. It moved forward four to five hundred meters towards a place called Gadidanda. This night, he damaged a goat belonging to Maniraj Gurung.

‘Since it is close to Bhalugaunde in Pathibhara area from Gadidanda, many assumed that it would return to its habitat,’ said Suraj Ojha, district president of the Community Forest Users Federation. ‘This was expected as this area is also considered a bear habitat, but it did not happen.’ On Thursday morning, two goats were attacked by the bear again.

But not in the Bhalugaunde area, which is said to be its habitat, but in a different place. According to Santosh Limbu, ward chairman of Phungling Municipality-10 Furumbu, a mother goat and a goat belonging to Posta Bahadur Karki have been eaten. He said that three livestock were damaged in his ward between Wednesday and Thursday morning.

Ward Chairman Laxhuman Gurung of Phungling-9 said that he reached the neighboring ward after 12 livestock were damaged in his ward. According to Laxhuman, it has been found that the livestock attacked by the bear sometimes die immediately and even those that do not die immediately die within two-three days. ‘It leaves poison in the body.’ It was found that the injured sheep and goats left behind swell and die. None of them survived,’ said Laxhuman.

At present, the bear is moving forward after causing damage and the employees of the Division Forest Office are regularly walking behind collecting details of the damage. ‘We have one cage,’ said Lalit Kumar Yadav, acting chief of the Division Forest Office, ‘There was a suspicion that it would come again and it was expected that it would return to its habitat after reaching Gadidanda, but since neither of these things happened, we have to find an alternative.’

The forest office is preparing to move the cage. Since it was found to move forward by walking for 500 meters every night, he said that now the cage will be placed after studying it accordingly. So far, Suraj says that it has been found to attack two to three nearby cages in a single night.

Local public representatives say that even though it has only damaged livestock, there is growing concern that it will attack humans. ‘Now I am tired of eating blood and meat every day,’ said Ward Chairman Laxhuman. ‘Now I am more worried because if I don’t find any animals, they might attack people.’