With the growing intensity of natural calamities, Uttarakhand has repeatedly proven itself to be a disaster-prone state. Interestingly, the types of disasters vary with the seasons. During the rainy season, Uttarakhand is mostly affected by natural disasters, while in winter, it faces a different kind of disaster. The extended monsoon of 2025, especially in August and September, brought excessive misery and massive destruction due to extreme weather events like cloudbursts, flash floods, landslides, and soil erosion in nearly every hill district, including the capital, Dehradun.

Now, with the onset of winter, a diverse yet common disaster in the form of human and wildlife conflict is becoming increasingly intense. This is not a new issue for the Uttarakhand hills; the famous author of “The Man-Eaters of Kumaon", Edward James Corbett, born on July 25, 1875, in Nainital, killed at least 125 tigers and leopards, including the notorious Champawat Tiger and Rudraprayag Leopard, which had killed 436 and 125 people, respectively. Corbett spent his childhood exploring the dense forests, developing deep knowledge and skills in tracking large predators and man-eaters. He only targeted man-eating big cats that had killed humans in the Indian Himalayan region, particularly Uttarakhand. Despite his efforts to........

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