A 12-year-old has been the latest victim of unchecked human-animal conflict in Bardiya, a Tarai district of Lumbini Province.

According to Division Forest Office Head Prabin Bidari, the boy was mauled by a tiger while walking alone near the Bairiya-based Jira Community Forest on Saturday.

The local people have been living in abject terror for the past few months due to relentless attacks by the big cats.

Incidents of human-animal conflict have increased in recent months across the country. At least three people have died of tiger attacks in this fiscal year so far, said Ganesh Prasad Tiwari, information officer of Chitwan National Park.

According to the latest tiger census held in 2021, the tiger population in Nepal has reached 355, with the country nearly tripling the number in 12 years.

As per the 2009 census, 18 tigers were found in the BNP and the buffer zone. The number had risen to 125, an almost sevenfold increase, in 2021.

While the increase in the tiger population in Nepal is taken as a success story internationally, it has come with its own set of challenges for the country, the major one being the reduction of human-tiger conflict and the rehabilitation of captive tigers.