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A single, solitary animal that may have been acquainted with humans and is now on the loose is responsible for the recent spate of attacks on people, mostly children, in the villages of Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich district, according to veteran wildlife scientist, YV Jhala.
Speaking with Down To Earth (DTE), Jhala said while he was not actually on the ground in the affected area situated in eastern UP near the Nepal border, he had reason to believe that the attack was not being carried out by a pack.
“All I have read are newspaper reports. I am also in touch with the local district forest officer. The situation now is very similar to what happened in 1996,” he said.
Twenty-eight years ago, Jhala was in the same region, on the trail of something that had killed 30 children in 40 villages of three districts — Pratapgarh, Jaunpur and Sultanpur.
There was utter panic in the area then. According to reports from the time, wolves were blamed. However, for the residents of the local villages, it was the doing of a Manai, a shape shifting lycanthrope, a man in wolf’s skin. It had turned out to be a wolf, according to Jhala.
Bahraich is part of the Terai, the swampy lowlands that straddle the border of southern Nepal and northern India.
The latest spate of attacks has happened in 30 villages of the Mahasi block. According to media reports seven people — one adult and six children — have been killed and over 20 have been injured.
According to Jhala, the bodies of the victims have mostly been found to be mostly intact.
“While portions have been devoured, the corpses have not been torn into pieces. A wolf pack usually pulls away at various body parts of its prey, dismembering it in the process,” he noted.
This leads Jhala to believe that it is, in fact, a solitary animal.
He also says that wolves may or may not be responsible.
“Wolves normally do not attack people. Wherever there is a high density of wolves in India, there has been no record of them killing people or children. It is only in areas where there is extreme poverty where children are not looked after properly, there is no prey and livestock is guarded more than children, that wolves attack children. Even dogs will. Any predator would, as they have to survive,” he reasoned.
According to the veteran scientist, eastern UP has also seen a lot of hybridisation between Indian wolves (Canis lupus pallipes) and free-ranging dogs, like elsewhere in India.
Moreover, people in this part of UP keep wolf-dog hybrids or even wolves as pets, as per Jhala. “Having been acquainted with humans, they lose their natural fear of them. If they get loose, they usually have nothing to eat in this region. Hence, they turn on easily available and weak, defenceless prey like children,” said Jhala.
As an adopted wolf or a wolfdog pup grows, it becomes too big for those that have adopted it. It then has to be released as it becomes a risk.
He recollected that 12 children were killed in this area five years ago. “I was in the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, at the time. We investigated and it turned out to be feral dogs,” Jhala noted.
Unless DNA is extracted from the site of the kills, there cannot be surety in the matter, he added.
He was also clear that such attacks were extremely rare “since the opportunity to attack and kill children is far greater than it ever occurs in nature. It is a one-in-a million event that happens”.
