Wild boars devour crops as Kashmir sees return of species after decades

Srinagar, May 13: When Hamid Lone, 60, reached his field in Tapper village of Pattan in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district last month, it looked as if the land had been ploughed overnight.

The pea seeds he had sown were buried under churned mud, with deep hoof marks cutting across the field.

“They dug up the soil as if a tractor had run through it,” Lone said. “Not a single row was left untouched.”

Across north and central Kashmir, farmers say wild boars are damaging paddy nurseries, vegetable fields and orchards during the ongoing sowing season, reviving memories of a species many believed had disappeared from Kashmir decades ago.

Residents in Baramulla’s Pattan, Rafiabad, and Uri areas said the animals enter fields after dark, uprooting freshly sown crops and destroying carefully prepared soil beds within hours.

In Bandipora district, farmers in Hajin, Asham, and Inderkote said paddy nurseries, potato fields and young apple trees had come under repeated attacks.

Ghulam Nabi, 62, a farmer from Hajin, said his family had to sow paddy saplings a second time after wild boars destroyed the nursery overnight.

“We had prepared the nursery only days earlier,” Nabi said. “By morning, the mud was overturned and the saplings were scattered everywhere. It looked like the land had been clawed apart.”

Residents in Asham’s Thajnari area said potato patches and vegetable fields were also being ravaged.

“They don’t just eat crops,” said a farmer, Muhamad Saleem, 50. “They root through the fields searching for food and leave the soil completely torn up.”

Farmers in Budgam’s Chadoora belt, including Repora, Namthall, Checkpora and Buchroo villages, also reported losses this season.

Ghulam Mohiuddin Paul, 55, a farmer from Buchroo, said the animals had started targeting orchards as well.

“They strip the bark off young apple trees and damage the roots,” Paul said. “Some trees dry up completely after that.”

In south Kashmir, reports of crop damage have also emerged from Pampore and Tral.

Wildlife officials said the issue has now moved beyond farmland.

“A wild boar entered Tral town and injured four persons,” said a wildlife official. “It was among the first direct human-wild boar conflict incidents reported from the Valley in recent years.”

Wildlife officials and historians say wild boars were introduced to Kashmir during the Dogra period, likely by Maharaja Gulab Singh around the mid-19th century (1850) for hunting purposes.

British administrator Walter Lawrence mentioned wild boars in north Kashmir in his 1895 book ‘The Valley of Kashmir’.

For decades, the animals remained confined to forest areas around Dachigam National Park and adjoining belts of Zabarwan, Pampore, Ganderbal, and Tral’s Shikargah forests.

After the 1980s, sightings became rare, leading many residents to believe the species had disappeared from the Valley.

Officials now believe small populations survived in remote forests before reappearing over the past decade.

One of the first modern sightings was reported around 2010 in the Limber forests of Baramulla, where a dead wild boar was spotted by Intesar Suhail, a wildlife warden and researcher.

In 2013, Khurshid Ahmad, a researcher and the head of the Wildlife Department at Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Kashmir (SKAUST-K), photographed wild boars in north Kashmir, confirming the species’ return after nearly three decades.

Sightings increased after 2017, particularly in Uri and other areas close to the Line of Control (LoC).

Wildlife experts believe the current population growth may be linked both to surviving local groups and movement through forest corridors across the LoC, where wild boar populations have also increased in recent years.

Studies conducted in Muzaffarabad, Kotli, and adjoining areas across the LoC have documented widespread crop damage caused by wild boars.

“There is no detailed scientific study yet explaining exactly how the population increased,” a wildlife official said. “But warmer winters, food availability in orchards and fields, and movement across forest areas are considered important factors.”

Intesar Suhail, wildlife warden for north Kashmir, said the species reproduces rapidly and adapts easily to changing conditions.

“A female can produce six to 12 offspring at a time and breed more than once a year,” he said. “Once they find food and suitable conditions, the population increases rapidly.”

Officials said controlling the animals remains difficult because adult boars are aggressive and hard to capture or transport.

“They are strong animals with sharp tusks,” Suhail said. “Handling them is not easy.”

Wildlife officials have also raised concerns about the impact on habitats around Dachigam, including areas used by the endangered Hangul deer.

“Wild boars compete for food and can prey on young Hangul fawns,” Suhail said. “Any increase in their population inside sensitive habitats is a concern for conservation.”

The issue has also reached the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, where National Conference (NC) leader Ali Muhammad Sagar earlier this year reported that farmers living near Dachigam were experiencing repeated damage to their orchards, crops and kitchen gardens.

Wildlife authorities are advising farmers to use community guarding, ultrasonic deterrent devices and traditional repellents such as ropes coated with cow dung or human hair.

Farmers, however, said the measures have had little effect.

“We stay awake at night to guard the fields, but they still come,” farmer Hamid Lone said. “If this continues, farming itself will become difficult.”