Editorial: Wolf’s lair

NEW DELHI: The all-pervasive issue of man-animal conflict has taken on a frightening twist with eight people, including seven children, losing their lives in wolf attacksthat have transpired over a period of two months, in Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich district. CM Yogi Adityanath has instructed officials to intensify patrolling and deploy additional manpower in vulnerable districts. As part of Operation Bhedia, wolves are being tracked using drones, and traps and cages are being positioned near their dens.

This cause of this new anxiety is being zeroed in on loss of habitat (grasslands) and fragmentation, deforestation, infrastructure development, depletion of natural prey, and food scarcity when wolf pups are growing. This has forced wolves to venture close to human settlements. The problem has been recurring in UP, and the adjoining states for several decades now. Back in 1996, as many as 76 children were attacked by wolves in eastern UP, of whom 50 succumbed. Similarly, in Bihar’s Hazaribagh (now in Jharkhand), more than 200 children lost their lives to wolf attacks between 1980 and 1985. Down south, in Anantpur, Andhra Pradesh, nine children lost their lives to wolf attacks in the early 1980s.

As much as 80-90% of India’s wolf population lives outside of protected areas. The varieties found in the country include the Indian Peninsular Wolf and the Himalayan Wolf. An estimate from 2022 tells us that just about 3,100 Peninsular Wolves remain in India, and are classified as endangered under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. What raises the probabilities of man-animal encounters is that these predators roam swathes as wide as 200-250 km, making it doubly harder to protect their territories from human encroachments.

In the case of Bahraich, wildlife experts have surmised that the gushing Ghaghara river has made headway into the adjoining forests which might have upset the wolves’ habitat, compelling them to move towards human settlements. Another theory that has emerged amidst the dwindling wolf population, is regarding the hybridisation of wolves, i.e. being crossbred with domestic dogs, owing to which the wild animals have lost their innate fear of humans.

These developments are mirrored by a report warning how India could turn into a global hotspot for human wildlife conflict by 2070. The study called Global Expansion of Human-Wildlife Overlap in the 21st Century forewarned that populous nations like India, as well as China are set to experience some of the highest levels of human-wildlife overlap. Some damning statistics might help explain this threat. Over the past decade, the government has processed 8,731 proposals and cleared the diversion of nearly 1 lakh hectares of forest land for non-forest activities under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980. The ‘indirect’ human cost of such clearances can be seen in the fatalities recorded between 2019-2024 — 2,727 lives lost in elephant attacks, and 349 killed by tigers.

For an idea of how things can go from bad to worse, look no further than Namibia where the government has planned on culling 723 wild animals, including 83 elephants, to distribute the meat to people struggling to feed themselves because of a severe drought across southern Africa. The culling will take place in parks and communal areas where authorities believe animal numbers exceed available grazing land and water supplies. For context, Southern Africa is facing its worst drought in several decades, with Namibia having exhausted 84% of its food reserves last month, per the UN. If this does not serve as a wake up call, we can’t tell what will.