Five of the six wolves blamed for killing 10 people, mostly children, in the agricultural landscapes near the forests of Bahraich in Uttar Pradesh since March have been caged but forest officials and wildlife experts caution that the human-wolf conflict isn’t over.

State forest officials, working with local volunteers, have deployed some 50 teams across the landscapes adjacent to the Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary to capture or kill the lone she-wolf from the pack of six that they believe is still roaming there.

“Since her packmates were captured and caged, the lone she-wolf is likely to be even more violent than earlier,” a forest department official said.

Locals who have blamed the pack for killing at least 10 people and injuring over 50 in predatory attacks over the past seven months are hoping for a respite from their fears. One of the five wolves, however, died soon after it was put in a cage.

Wildlife experts who have tracked multiple episodes of human-wolf conflicts in Uttar Pradesh and other states over the years say it would be wrong to portray wolves as the villains. “This isn’t the first time, nor is it going to be the last,” an expert said.

One research study that had reviewed the human-wolf conflict in different parts of the country had identified factors that invite predatory attacks — human settlements either on the fringes of forests or adjacent to bush cover where wolves can hide and children left unattended or people sleeping outside.

Sections of wildlife biologists have speculated that in some areas “a culture of child-lifting” may have emerged among wolves after a single-chance attack on a vulnerable child. A 2009 review on human-wolf attacks cited a 1982 study speculating that “child-lifters” are “abnormal” in some way, indicated by the unusually large skulls belonging to wolves known to have attacked humans.

Scientists have since the 1980s documented wolf attacks in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Rajasthan. Wolves killed at least 80 children between 1993 and 1995 around the Hazaribagh area in Jharkhand and 76 children during 1996 in Uttar Pradesh.

As human-dominated landscapes expand into forested areas, experts say, the option is for humans to learn to co-exist with the wolves. “This is the only effective way to mitigate the human-wolf conflict,” B. Shiv Shankar, the divisional forest officer at Katarniaghat, told The Telegraph.

The forest department has been running weekly training programmes seeking to educate the locals about how to minimise the risk of wolf attacks.

“These animals attack only easy prey and aware villagers can keep them at bay by being alert,” Shankar said, adding that shrinking forest land has increased the risk of human-wolf conflict in the state.

According to one estimate, Uttar Pradesh has lost six per cent of its forest area over the past two decades, although government officials say afforestation schemes have compensated for the loss.

Shankar said the area around Katarniaghat is particularly vulnerable because it is a terai area with an abundance of water. Rivers Ghagra, Rapti and Sharda meander through the landscape, but floods can disrupt the lives of wolves.

“This is what happened this year. Wolves dig into the earth to make their homes. But this year, flood water made them homeless, pushing them into straying into fields in search of new homes and food,” Shankar said.