Dogs, not hyenas, behind Sitapur attacks, confirm wildlife experts
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All evidence collected from the sites of attacks and eyewitness statements point towards the involvement of dogs. WAHID JAMSHED,
Wildlife expert of the WWF
LUCKNOW: Packs of dogs are responsible for the attacks that have led to the death of six children and injuries to a dozen others in Sitapur last week, confirmed experts from World Wildlife Fund (WWF) on Tuesday.
The team has been roped in by the Sitapur district administration to investigate the attacks. The WWF revelation nullifies the conjecture that hyenas, and not dogs, may have been responsible.
“All the evidence collected from the sites of attacks and statements of eyewitnesses point towards the involvement of dogs,” said Wahid Jamshed, a wildlife expert of the WWF.
Jamshed and his team also pointed out a change in the behaviour of dogs as a cause for attacks on kids. “Prima facie it appears that dogs involved in the attacks have overcome the fear of attacking humans. So they are attacking despite the fear of facing retaliation by locals,” said Jamshed. The team of experts and local wildlife officials on Tuesday visited the sites of every recent attack. Pug marks collected from these places also showed that they were of dogs.
Wildlife officials have also considered the behavioural patterns of wild animals and dogs to reach this conclusion. “All the attacks reported from the district took place during daytime, which is similar to the behaviour expressed by dogs. Wild animals like hyenas or foxes hunt only during night,” said Anirudh Pandey, divisional forest officer (DFO) of Sitapur.
The officer said the ‘striped hyenas’ found in the district have smaller body size, which makes them incapable of hunting.
“Striped hyenas have a scavenging nature. They survive on dead animals found in forests and rarely hunt,” said the officer.
“It is impossible to catch these dogs from the wild due to the uneven terrain. The best way to curb these attacks would be to eliminate them,” Jamshed said, adding “elimination may not be the best way to deal with animals but sometimes it is the only way left”.
On the advice of wildlife experts, the Sitapur district administration has also called experts from Indian Wildlife Research Institute (IVRI), Bareilly, to conduct a study on the incidents of the attacks.