The recent deaths of children in Bahraich attributed to wolves have brought this usually ignored species into the limelight for the wrong reasons.
We lose over 50 people to tigers over 100 each to wild pigs and leopards, and over 50,000 to snake bites annually in India. In the past 30 years, wolves have been responsible for two proven incidents of attacks on children in the 1980s in Bihar’s Hazaribaug area and in eastern Uttar Pradesh (Pratapgadh, Jaunpur, Sultanpur Districts) in 1996-1997.
The current incident in Bahraich is possibly the third such case. Yet, this rare incident has been blown out of proportion in the media maligning the species as a vicious killer of humans. This could not be further from the truth, as the wolf, in reality, is an elusive and shy animal that would prefer to stay as far away as possible from humans.
The Indian wolf is one of its kind, having evolved in the Indian sub-continent a million years ago and is the most ancient living lineage of the species found in the world. Wolves have lived in India much before we humans set foot on this land. It was a native of this land, much before the tiger came into India from the eastern Indo-Malayan region and the lion from the Western Ethiopian region.
The wolf is the progenitor of “Man’s Best Friend” and gave rise to dogs some 15-30 thousand years ago through domestication. They number between 2000 to 3000 individuals in India and are more endangered than the tiger.
Yet, the wolf has not got the conservation recognition or reverence it deserves and is branded as a killer. I have studied wolves closely for the past 25 years, captured several individuals and tagged them with radio collars to understand their ecology, behaviour, habitat use, and diet. I have approached wolf den sites on foot and horseback, captured their pups from dens to weigh them, while the pack stood and watched some 50-60m away. I have never felt threatened or in any kind of danger in the presence of wolves.
Why then have wolves resorted to killing children in Bahraich, so unnatural to its’ behaviour? Wolves in the wild feed once in three to five days and gorge themselves on six to nine kg of meat in a single meal. They prey on antelope, deer, hare, reptiles, and rodents. But today most of their wild prey and natural habitat have been altered by humans to make way for livestock, agriculture, townships, industry and mines.
Wolves have shifted to killing goats, sheep, and cattle calves as their natural wild prey is depleted bringing them in conflict with human interests. Today livestock sustains 75% of the wolf population in India.
Wolves are found in the states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Karnataka. Not a single incident of wolf attack has been reported from these states.
In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar where confirmed incidences of wolf attacks on children have occurred there are some commonalities: 1) There is no wild prey, all antelope, deer, and hare have long been consumed by people; 2) High poverty amongst the people, especially the victims’ families. They have no or poor housing, poor lighting at night, and often adults are absent to care for the children. Small children are left in the care of elder children while the parents or single mothers work for a living. Toilets are rare or even rarely used with open defecation being the norm. 3) Livestock are heavily guarded to deter predators as they are prized possessions.
Under such circumstances, all it takes for a clever predator to survive is to learn that children are a much easier prey option. In this region, people sometimes keep wolves as pets and even hybridise them with dogs. Often when such pets grow up, they are difficult to handle and owners set them free, unleashing fearless killing machines that look for easy prey to survive — children.
In 2019, in the neighbouring district of Sitapur, there were attacks on children by an unidentified animal and the blame was put on the usual suspect by the media – the wolf. A proper assessment by biologists showed that feral dogs were responsible for those attacks.
Wolves have a social system similar to humans where a pack is a family unit constituted by the breeding pair (known as the alpha pair) and their pups from several litters. Pack members hunt together and help the parents to raise the youngest pups. Only the alpha pair breeds in a pack. Often singlet wolves, both males and females, leave the pack to try to find a mate, breed and form their own pack.
But finding a mate in a large landscape where wolves are persecuted by people is not easy and such wolves wander as loners for long periods. Wolf packs while feeding on a carcass usually tear out chunks to feed on, strewing limb bones and hiding within a 30-50m radius of the carcass. The bodies of children that have been fed upon and recovered in Bahraich have been intact, and partly eaten, suggesting that a single animal was involved in the killing and feeding of these children in Bahraich. A feeding pack, would in all possibility, leave only bones and skulls littered over a large area.
Loss of any human life is unacceptable and it is important to identify and remove this animal(s) to stop further attacks. Capturing wolves alive is not an easy task, they rarely enter into cages like leopards, tigers and lions do, and rarely get within range to tranquilise them with a dart gun. The Uttar Pradesh forest department needs to be complimented to have captured some members of a wolf pack from the region.
However, law enforcement officials need to be vigilant to guard against false claims of deaths attributed to wolves. An 18-20 kg Indian wolf is highly unlikely to be able to kill an adult human. Often murders are committed to settle feuds or to claim government compensation and these deaths are blamed on the wolf.
Meanwhile, communities should be made aware that a wolf is not a threat to adult humans, but children in villages should be not allowed to play or venture into forests or tall crops alone.
A hand-held staff is effective in deterring and guarding against an attack. At night children should be made to sleep indoors with proper locked doors, walls, and barred windows. If proper housing is not available then children should be made to sleep between adults and tied with a chord around the waist to a nearby sleeping parent. Vegetation should be cleared in the vicinity of the sleeping area and a fire or light kept going throughout the night. These measures will reduce attacks.
This single incident should not undermine our admiration of this predator that has shared our land since ancient times – the wolf has all the moral right to be here as much as we do. They are only trying to survive in this landscape so much altered by our actions.
Dr Yadvendradev Jhala is a senior scientist of INSA at the National Centre for Biological Sciences and former dean, Wildlife Institute of India. The views expressed are personal
