Sitesh Ranjan Deb gave up hunting after a bear attack left him badly injured and cost him an eye.He turned the grounds of his home in Sreemangal into a wildlife treatment center that cared for injured, confiscated, and displaced animals.His knowledge of animal behavior, learned during years in the forest, helped him capture, treat, and release wildlife ranging from slow lorises and pythons to bears and monkeys.He also campaigned against wildlife killing and trafficking and warned that shrinking forests were driving more animals into conflict with people.
The bear came out of the forest with enough force to kill him. It mauled the hunter badly and cost him an eye. He spent three months in a hospital recovering. There, he began asking himself questions that had not troubled him much before. Why was he hunting? Why was he killing?
Hunting had come to him through his family. His father and grandfather were known around Sreemangal, in northeastern Bangladesh, for killing leopards, wild boars, and other animals that threatened people or crops. As a boy, he accompanied his father into the forest. After his father died, he continued hunting. He became a gunsmith and a guide, familiar with animal tracks, forest paths, and the habits of creatures that most people encountered only by accident.
