Kanchanpur farmers risk life sleeping in the field to protect crops from Shuklaphanta animals

They alert each other and bang wood on metal sheets to scare away wildlife, but past incidents show these makeshift defences are not foolproof.

Sixty-year-old Jhikadu Rana of ward 5 of Imilia in Beldandi Rural Municipality rarely spends his nights at home. This has been the routine not just recently, but for the past 15 years. Most of the time, his nights are spent in his fields across the Chaudhar river. To protect his crops from wild animals, he keeps watch there at night.