Thursday, 19 September 2024
Thursday, 19 September 2024
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath on Sunday assured the residents of Mahis tehsil that the forest department, district administration and police will continue working until the wolf threat ends.He also conducted an aerial survey of the region and met families of those who lost their lives in the recent wolf attacks during the human-wildlife conflict.
The chief minister said that 25 teams, comprising 165 personnel from the forest department, have been deployed to ensure public safety. Four thermal drones have also been deployed for monitoring.
The first attack took place 127 days ago, on March 10. It was a Sunday. Sayra, a 3-year-old in Mahsi tehsil of Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich district, was sleeping with her mother in a field. No one has seen her since then. A wolf is believed to have taken her. Reportedly, forest officials couldn’t recover her body.
Since then, wolf attacks have killed 10 people, including nine children, and left around three dozen injured in Bahraich’s Mahsi tehsil, according to latest reports from PTI.
The attacks, targeting children, reached their peak during the monsoon.
The severity of the situation has led the Uttar Pradesh government to declare Mehsi tehsil a ‘Wildlife Disaster’ affected area. This declaration allows for faster compensation to victims’ families and proper efforts to control the wolves.
The government has granted a compensation of ₹5 lakh to the families of five victims and is investigating the remaining two cases, according to PTI.
The most recent attack took place on Thursday. Wolves allegedly killed a woman named Gudiya (26) while she was putting her daughter to sleep in Singiya Nasirpur village. The animal inflicted injuries to her neck and face, and the villagers admitted her to the district hospital for treatment.
Locals have alleged wolves are behind these attacks. But divisional forest officer Ajit Pratap differed. Singh stated in an official statement early in September that the WII (Wildlife Institute of India) expert scientist Dr Shaheer Khan, who visited the scene of the incidents, did not find any evidence of wolf footprints but discovered footprints of jackals and dogs.
According to the divisional forest officer Ajit Pratap Singh, the forest department instructed the villagers to sleep indoors or on rooftops and to remain vigilant.
On August 31, a 9-year-old boy named Paras was attacked while sleeping outside his home in Pure Dildarsingh village. The same night, Punnilal, a 55-year-old man from Dariakutti village, was also attacked while sleeping outdoors. The hospital admitted both victims, and the doctors reported their conditions as stable.
A 2.5-year-old girl named Anjali was snatched by a wolf from her home in Garethi Gurudutt Singh village on September 1.
The forest department found her mutilated body a kilometre from her home, with both hands missing. This marked the eighth fatal attack in the region since mid-July.
To combat the rising wolf threat, the Uttar Pradesh forest department launched ‘Operation Bhediya’ on July 17. Although the total number of wolves prowling in the area is uncertain.
Forest officials deployed drone cameras, thermal sensors, and decided to tranquillise the animals.
Barabanki Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Akashdeep Badhawan, in charge of the operation, confirmed the capture of four wolves by August 29, with the latest being a grown male trapped in a cage set near Sisayya Chudamani village.
Principal chief forest conservator Sanjay Srivastava has indicated that the animals are constantly changing location, complicating capture efforts.
Forest teams continue to set traps and monitor wolf dens with the use of drones and thermal cameras. On Saturday, September 2, two wolves were detected using thermal drones near Kulela village.
Gyan Prakash Singh, a retired officer of the Indian Forest Service and a former forest officer at Bahraich’s Katarniaghat Wildlife Division, has speculated that the wolves may be seeking revenge for the killing of their cubs.
Singh, now an adviser to the Wildlife Trust of India, said to the PTI, that wolves have a tendency to retaliate when their cubs are harmed. In the past, similar incidents were recorded in Uttar Pradesh’s Jaunpur and Pratapgarh districts, where wolves attacked and killed over 50 children after humans killed their cubs.
Singh suggested that wolves involved in the current attacks may have been part of a group that was relocated to Chakia forest after wolf cubs were crushed by a tractor in January and February. The relocation, he believes, may have triggered the ongoing revenge-driven attacks in Bahraich.
Wolves are not unique in this. Maharashtra is believed to have curbed leopard attacks on humans by stopping the practice of translocating the big cats when they are captured near human settlements. Even relocated tigers sometimes turn man-eaters.
