In the latest incident of human-animal conflict in Tanahun, an 11-year-old boy died in an attack by a leopard at Salthan in ward 5 of Bandipur Rural Municipality on July 19. The leopard mauled Sundar Achhami, the son of Chij Kumar Achhami and Uma Devi, while he was playing in the frontyard of his house.

“We had just come home after working in the paddy field at around 7pm that day. I rushed to the animal shed a few metres from our house to feed and water the buffaloes. My sister-in-law’s house is close by, and when I was chatting with her, my son was playing with a mobile phone. Suddenly, we heard him screaming and hurried to the scene. I saw the leopard attacking him and attempted to rescue him. I could snatch him away from the leopard’s clutches. He was seriously injured. We rushed him to the hospital, but he could not be saved,” said Uma recalling the tragic incident.

“We used to move between one house to another (houses of Uma and her sister-in-law) up to 9/10 pm, never thinking that a leopard would attack our children,” she lamented.

The residents of Salthan are living in abject terror now. Parents are no longer comfortable leaving their children alone at home or allowing them to go to school by themselves. “Now, parents escort their children to and from school. The whole village is terrorised after the incident,” said Raj Kumar Achhami, a local.

This is not the first time a leopard has attacked children in the district. On February 13, 2018, a leopard killed six-year-old Bishal Shrestha in ward 3 of Bhanu Municipality. The beast attacked the boy near his house.

According to the Division Forest Office in Tanahun, as many as 15 children—aged 2 to 12—have been killed by leopards in Tanahun district since 2018. Twenty-one others were injured in similar attacks during the same period.

Initially, wards 1, 2, 3 and 4 of Bhanu Municipality were mainly affected by leopard attacks. Over time, they started attacking children in Anbukhaireni, Bandipur, Byas and Shuklagandaki areas as well. The leopards mainly attack children at dawn and dusk.

As per the data available at the Division Forest Office, six children were killed in Bhanu Municipality, five in Bandipur Rural Municipality, two in Shuklagandaki Municipality and one each in Anbukhaireni Rural Municipality and Byas Municipality. Leopards have also killed several domesticated animals in the district.

Amid the rising number of leopard attacks, the local units in Tanahun have launched awareness campaigns. “It seems that leopard terror has receded to some extent in Bandipur. But attacks on animals, mainly dogs and goats, continue unabated,” said Surendra Thapa, chairman of Bandipur Rural Municipality. Thapa advises parents not to leave their children unattended, to escort small children to school and avoid venturing to forest areas alone.

Despite launching awareness programmes, the local units have yet to take concrete initiatives to control the leopard terror. “We don’t have rights and resources to control wildlife effectively. We have been organising awareness programmes at the ward level and we are ready to coordinate with the Division Forest Office and other authorities concerned to tackle leopard terror,” said Baikuntha Neupane, mayor of Byas Municipality.

There are 621 community forests covering 82,549 hectares of land in Tanahun district. There are national and private forests as well. There are hundreds of settlements adjoining the forest areas. While community forests have improved the living standards of local residents, the expansion of forest areas has led to a rise in human-animal conflict.

In a bid to control human-animal conflict, the Division Forest Office and other authorities have tried various methods, including installing camera traps, deploying special security teams, installing traditional wooden snares, constructing ponds in forest areas, clearing bushy areas around settlements, and planting fruit trees in the forests. But they did not have much impact.

Over the past six years, 16 leopards fell into wooden traps in various community forests across Tanahun and safely relocated, mainly to Chitwan National Park. The traditional wooden traps are now in dilapidated conditions, but eight iron traps are still functional.

The leopards are also victims of the growing human-animal conflict. “Both humans and animals are affected,” said Kashiraj Pandit, forest officer at the Division Forest Office. According to him, a total of 40 leopards have been found dead in Tanahun district over the past six years.

Conservationists point to habitat loss, dwindling water sources, shortage of prey animals, and a rise in leopard population as key factors driving the conflict. “More leopards were found in the forests of Bhanu Municipality than the area can support. So the leopards enter human settlements in search of food,” said Pandit.