Kathmandu, March 1 -- On March 20 last year, two women from Madhuban Municipality-5 in Bardiya district went to get fodder for their goats in a nearby community forest. They never came back.

Fifty-five-year-old Samundri Budha Chhetri and Dhansari Gurung, 50, had been attacked by a Royal Bengal tiger and killed on the spot. Their bodies were half-eaten when the locals recovered them. Like Chhetri and Gurung, six people lost their lives in tiger attacks in Bardiya, in addition to one from elephants in the previous fiscal year.

"Incidents of attacks from wild animals have increased with an increase in the number of these animals," said Mek Bahadur Gurung, the municipal spokesperson. "An uptick in forest coverage too is responsible for such...