After wild elephants and tigers, it is a bear that has triggered panic in a village in Thiruvananthapuram after a wild bear fell into a well and subsequently died during rescue operation.
The death of the bear had also led to allegations of lapses in the rescue operations.
It was during the early hours of Thursday that a male bear fell into the well on a residential premises at Vellanad, around 25 km from the city.
The forest officials tried to take out the bear by darting. The bear plunged into the well while being fished out using net after darting. Subsequenty it died and the body was fished out with the help of fire and rescue service personnel.
Divisional forest officer Pradeep Kumar told DH that it was an accident as the net slipped while trying to take out the bear after darting.
Meanwhile, the presence of bear had triggered panic among the people as the region was about 10 km away from the forest. It was also for the first time that a bear was spotted in the region.
Vellanad panchayat president K S Rajalekshmi said that a rumour had spread in the area that bear used to roam around in human settlement in pair and hence the chances of one more bear in the region was high. Hence the people were quite scared.
But a forest official dismissed the rumours. He said that even as bear was being spotted in the locality for the first time, earlier also there were instances of bear being spotted in localities far away from forest.
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