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Some of the Rarest Bears in the World Are Under Threat
A viral video of a rare Himalayan brown bear under attack puts a spotlight on a little-known species on the brink of extinction
DRASS, INDIA — The big male never stood a chance. The villagers didn’t have pitchforks, but they did have stones, and they lobbed them mercilessly, even after the local wildlife department darted the beast as he tried to escape up a rocky escarpment. But it wasn’t meant to be.
His footing was off. Those normally sturdy paws couldn’t keep their grip as the drugs took effect, and what should have been a simple climb became a free solo gone horribly wrong. A rock struck him hard on the side of his head, then another, and as the villagers cheered, smartphones recording, the animal tipped over and fell, tumbling off the sharp granite until he plummeted hundreds of feet into the river below.
This isn’t the high Arctic where grizzlies are venturing into polar bear territory. This is Drass, the second-coldest inhabited place on Earth, located on the Indian side of the disputed Kashmir region in the Himalayas.
No one knows how many Himalayan brown bears there are here, in large part because of the ongoing feud between India and Pakistan.
The Kashmir we often hear about in the international media is the volatile Kashmir Valley in the far west of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, where separatists on both sides of the disputed border between India and Pakistan have spent 70 years yearning for freedom. This is the other Kashmir, part of the more peaceful district of Kargil, in Ladakh, an old Silk Road stop separated by a wall of mountains and smudged by the reputation of its more infamous neighbor. In recent years, this area has become a high-altitude oasis for Himalayan brown bears, a little known species that’s more threatened than the polar bears that have become the animal symbol…
