No food in forests: Bears, langurs throng Uttarkahand apple orchards as native vegetation gets taken over by invasives

This is the fifth part of a series exploring the food crisis for wildlife. Read the first part, second part, third part and the fourth part.

In Uttarakhand, as in many other parts of the country, invasive plant species are destroying the forest, limiting the food available to wild animals. Horticulture farmers are being particularly affected. The situation has deteriorated to the point where orchardists wake up in the morning to find several gardens destroyed by langurs and bears.

Sukhi Top village in Harshil Valley of Uttarkashi town is located at an altitude of about 2,745 metres above sea level. Mohan Singh, an apple orchardist in the village, reported increasing incursions by bears and langurs in his gardens and said this was not the case 10-15 years ago. There are about 120 households in the village.

“The United Nations Development Programme’s Securing Livelihoods in the Himalayas is being implemented in the region. When the farmers complained that bears were causing significant damage to their apple orchards, they did not believe us. They installed some security cameras near our gardens and bears were caught on camera eating apples,” said Singh.

Singh claimed that the number of animals in the forest has increased, causing more competition for food. Wildlife has begun to migrate to human settlements in search of food as a result.

“Several bears come to our gardens at once in the night. When the villagers talked in the morning, they find out that many gardens have been damaged. A single bear cannot damage multiple gardens at once. And when a female bear arrives, she brings babies with her who even break branches from trees. We had apple orchards 20 years ago, but bears did not eat the fruits back then,” he said.

On being asked why the bear attacks on apple orchards have increased, Singh suspects there is no more food for them in the forests. “About 20-30 years ago, our ancestors would grow buckwheat in the fields and the bears would eat it. Now, buckwheat farming has decreased. Each household would also have 400-500 sheep and goats back then and some of the animals would become bear prey. Now there are barely 150-200 goats in the entire village,” said Singh.

Other wildlife have also changed their food and behaviour, said Singh. Till the turn of the last century, langurs would earlier be seen in the forests here during the summer, but they did not come towards the village. Now they live there throughout the year.

“Primates visit fields and orchards in herds of 25-50 at a time. Langurs eat only the bark of apple trees, not the fruit, so the trees are at risk of drying out due to the peeling of the bark. Our years of hard work are in vain,” said Singh.

To protect the trees, villagers had to undertake an expensive measure of keeping a watchman in the orchards throughout the year. Wildlife previously seen only deep in forests can now be seen on the outskirts, said Singh. Monkeys have also started living in cold areas around Harshil Valley.

“Wherever the wild animals see greenery, they arrive to pillage. In November, the forests are dry and our fields are lush with mustard crops, attracting goat-like deer called ghurad (Himalayan goral) and kakad (barking deer or Muntjacs) in the nights. This did not happen previously,” the orchardist said.

While animals like the blue sheep or bharal (Pseudois nayaur) and Himalayan tahr don’t frequent the fields for food, sightings have become more common. “Two decades ago, they were not even visible to us, but now large flocks of them can be seen on the outskirts of the forest near the road,” said Singh. This means their prey base has also increased.

Locals report numerous changes in wildlife food habits from the high Himalayas to the Shivalik hills and Terai regions. While the number of wild animals such as deer, sambar, kakad and ghurad in the forest is unknown, their population is estimated using the numbers of large predatory wildlife such as tigers.

According to data released in 2023, the number of tigers in Uttarakhand has increased to 560 in 2023 from 442 in 2018. That means their prey base would also have increased. 

Human-wildlife conflict is a constant issue in the Terai region, which is rich in wetlands, grasslands and forests and is considered to be of very high quality in terms of food and water availability in the state. One important reason for this is food. In the latest census, the presence of 67 tigers was recorded in Ramnagar forest division, located in the Terai region.

Digant Nayak, divisional forest officer (DFO) Ramnagar, said there are usually four to five tigers per 100 square kilometres. “This number is around 20 in our division due to the abundance of food, hunting and water. Because of their large numbers, tiger attacks on human settlements have increased. Tigers have control over their territory and also drive out the leopards, who then turn towards human settlements,” he said.

As Ramnagar Forest Department is struggling to deal with increased human-wildlife conflict, it is also facing the challenge of eliminating invasive plant species like lantana camara and Congress grass (Parthenium hysterophorus) that are rapidly taking over the forest.

Lantana is stubborn and almost impossible to eliminate, said the DFO. “We have been working to eradicate Lantana for the last few years under landscape restoration activity under CAMPA funds, state budget and Project Tiger. We recommend the scientific approach called CR Babu ‘cut rootstock method’  to deal with the weed,” he said.

The ‘cut rootstock method’ is taken up in a fixed area for three years, Nayak said. The officials remove lantana plants in the first year, plant local species in the second year and maintain them in the third year. “In this way, the scope is increased area-wise, one after the other,” he said.

As lantana rapidly takes over grasslands, the DFO believes that this is affecting the food of wild animals. “Herbivorous wildlife like deer, chital and sambar have started adopting lantana as food. But it is not good for their health,” he added.

Bivash Pandav, a scientist at the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun, said many animals, including sambar, langur and elephants, are resorting to eating lantana as native species are no longer available. “Lantana leaves contain toxic elements that harm the livers of animals. However, more research is needed on this,” he said.

The preferred food of hebivores in the region would be Doob (Cynodon dactylon) grass or Chrysopogon aciculatis grass, which have now been replaced by lantana, Pandav said. 

Invasive species are constantly endangering our biosphere, said Qamar Qureshi of the Wildlife Institute of India, who is the author of a study published in Journal of Applied Ecology, titled Distribution, drivers and restoration priorities of plant invasions in India.

“Our understanding of how invasive plants spread is limited. If left unchecked, the invasion of wild species can endanger biodiversity and cause long-term damage to ecosystems and their services. This will have an impact on people as well,” Qureshi said.

Qureshi’s research was conducted in collaboration with the National Tiger Conservation Authority and samples were taken from 158,979 plots in an area of 358,550 sq km in 2018. The researchers studied 206,393 locations with a good presence of wild species.

The authors discovered invasive plants of high concern in 72 per cent of the study area (254,880 sq km), meaning non-native plant invasions threaten
two-thirds of the country’s natural areas. These invasions were more common in open and less dense forests than in denser and less human-populated forests. This infiltration was also greater in scattered forests, changes in water flow and forests located near residential areas.

However, Uttarakhand’s protected forests are in better condition. Despite the presence of invasive species, there is plenty of good grass for herbivores to feed on, so there are a good number of sambar and deer in the forests.

Wildlife has changed its food and behaviour in the past as well, depending on time and availability, said Pandav. He provides an example of elephants’ feeding habits.

“FW Champion, a wildlife photographer with the Imperial Forestry Service, wrote in his book in 1920 that elephants never ate Rohini (Mallotus philippensis) vegetation. At that time, there was a lot of bamboo in the forest, which was the favourite food of elephants.

According to the policy of that time, bamboo was extracted from the forests and gradually the bamboo became less. Then the elephants changed their diet and started eating plants like Rohini. This is still their staple food. The choice of food depends on what is available in the forest,” he said.

Behaviours like searching for food in garbage and attacking stray animals or humans can be explained by search for easy food as well, Pandav stated.

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