Rare sight: Bears visit Odisha temple to savor Prasadam

Nuapada: Even as wild bear is considered as one of the ferocious creatures and several violent encounters with bears are witnessed in forest areas, the friendship between humans and wild animals too exists in the world.

A rare video showing wild bears consuming Prasadam from locals instead of attacking them on premises of a temple atop hills in a dense forest under Sadar Block in Nuapada district proves it.

According to reports, Saliha forest houses a large number bears for which the Forest department has announced the dense forest as the bear corridor preventing people from entering into the wild. The villagers, who dared to visit the forest, either have been killed or seriously wounded in bear attack.

However, the scene is found to be opposite on the Saliha forest hills. Abandoning ferocity, the wild bears are now seen taking coconuts offered to deities everyday.

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Source said that a temple is situated atop the hills. A couple of days ago, a few wild bears had strayed into the temple premises while the priest was worshipping the deities. The panicked priest had after seeing bears at the temple. Some youth had come forward to save the priest from the wild animals. Instead of getting afraid of bears, they had offered them coconuts that had been offered to the deities. Surprisingly, the wild bears went back to the forest after having coconuts as food sans making harm to anyone at the temple.

Since then, the bears are visiting the temple everyday and receiving Prasadam from people without attacking devotees.