A Winter of Wild Alarms in Kashmir

A roaming animal becomes a symbol of a valley where forests and people struggle to find space.

- Dr. Rizwan Rumi

The bear arrived in Srinagar like a restless traveller who refused to read the season.

It should have curled into a den somewhere in the upper forests by now, locked inside the long winter sleep that makes the cold easier to bear.

Instead it roamed the city with a strange energy, slipping through campuses, brushing past boundary walls, leaving half-seen shadows on security cameras, and finishing its nights with a swim in the chilled waters of Nigeen.

People spoke of it with nervous jokes in daytime markets, then lay awake after sundown, listening for the scrape of claws on tin roofs.

Wildlife officers spent night after night tracing it through lanes that usually host students, shopkeepers and caretakers, instead of a hulking animal shaking droplets from its coat.

They said the bear seemed confused, not aggressive, as if pushed downhill by forces larger than instinct.

Word of the bear moved through the city like whispered gossip. Parents kept their children close, and hostel gates clanged shut long before dusk. In Hazratbal and Naseem Bagh, guards who used to watch for stray dogs now tracked a larger, stranger presence, a figure that might vault over walls without warning.

The story of this bear does not stand alone. It folds into a broader tale that has been unfolding across the valley for years: a slow and steady drift of wild animals toward human life.