Nabarangpur: Man-animal conflicts often make newspaper headlines. Recently, a driver was mauled to death by a bear while taking photograph of the animal.
While the forest department personnel try their best to keep wild animals away from human settlements, an acute scarcity of food and water in forests is learnt to be a major reason behind animals frequently straying into villages.
One such incident was reported Sunday from Jharigaon-Medana road in Nabarangpur district.
A couple of bears were spotted on the road in search of food with cashew nuts, cashew apples, jack fruits and maize being favourite with them.
Though people often try to drive away the furry animals and employ various methods to reach this end, bears also pounce on humans for their survival.
A youth was killed in a bear attack May 2 while he was on the way in his vehicle with a group of tourists. The bear was tranquilised and caged. However, the animal also died the next day due to alleged drug overdose.
Similarly, another bear died after coming in contact with a livewire in a forest under Dabugaon range. Poachers laid traps to hunt wild boars but the bear became the victim, a report said.