Wolves blamed for deaths of 7 children in India over last three months
LUCKNOW, India (AP) – Wolves have killed at least seven children and injured
more than a dozen people in northern India over the last three months,
officials said Saturday.
Panicked villagers in Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh state are keeping
their children indoors. Men are standing guard through the night.
The forest department has ordered that the animals be shot on sight, said
forest official A.P. Sinha in Bahraich district, 130 kilometres north of the
state capital, Lucknow.
Wolves usually avoid human habitats, said former forest official Ashok Singh.
But dwindling forest may be pushing them closer to villages in search of prey.
“With no food around, they first attack small animals, and then children,”
Singh said.
Two-year-old Chotu Nath was recovering in a Lucknow hospital on Saturday after
he was mauled by a wolf earlier in the week.
“It was dusk and he was sleeping on a cot in the courtyard. I had just stepped
into the house when the wolf attacked,” Chotu’s mother, Rama Devi, told The
Associated Press.
She said the wolf dropped the child and fled when she rushed at the animal and
shouted.
Wolf attacks in at least 24 Bahraich villages have killed seven children and
injured more than a dozen people, Sinha said.
A team of 25 hunters is pursuing the wolves, Sinha added. They’ve killed three
and trapped two others. One was handed over to the Lucknow Zoo, while the other
was released in a remote area.
Environmental groups have criticized the forest department’s policy of killing
some of the animals.
“Wolves are an endangered animal according to India’s wildlife protection
laws,” said Pushpa Ranganathan of the group People for Animals.