Bear cub run over by unidentified vehicle in Madhugiri

A stray bear cub was killed after being hit by an unidentified vehicle near Hunusemaradahatti Gate on Tumakuru Road in Madhugiri taluk in the early hours of Thursday.

The impact of the crash was such that the two-year-old male bear was severed into two parts.
The Forest department officials rushed to the spot and disposed of the body after a postmortem.

Thimmalapura forest reserve in Madhugiri taluk has a pretty good bear population. With Forest department doing precious little to protect and conserve the sloth bears, the man-animal conflict in the region is on the rise. Bears in search of food intrude into villages or stray onto the roads and getting killed in the process.

The Forest department' in 2015 came up with a proposal to declare 100sqkm area in Madhugiri taluk as sloth bear sanctuary. But the second bear sanctuary (first Daroji, Ballari district) has remained just on paper.

The environmentalists have urged the government to declare Madhugiri taluk as sloth bear sanctuary and take necessary steps to protect the bear population in the region.