Villagers kill sixth and final wolf ending months-long havoc by predator in Uttar Pradesh‘s Bahraich

Another wolf, part of a pack which has allegedly killed several people, after being captured by forest department personnel, in Bahraich district, Tuesday, Sept 10, 2024.
| Photo Credit: PTI

After months of terror, the six-member wolf pack responsible for wreaking havoc in the Mahsi region of Bahraich has been killed by villagers.

The last wolf was beaten to death by villagers in Tamachpur village on Saturday (October 5, 2024) while attempting to hunt a goat. Following this, the forest department came to the village and recovered the body of the wolf. Further action will be taken after the post-mortem of the wolf’s body.

Also read: No forests or wildlife will be left if animal-human conflicts are not resolved, SC warns

“For many days the department’s teams were trying to catch this last wolf. When we got information that there was an animal body lying in a village. We immediately went there with our team and saw that a dead wolf was lying there since there were marks of wounds on his body. It is possible that these villagers or some other people killed it. We will investigate this. Only after investigation will we be able to say anything further,” Bahraich District Forest Officer Ajit Singh said.

For the past few months, this pack of six wolves had wreaked havoc across many villages in the Mahsi tehsil in the Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh. Earlier, the Uttar Pradesh Forest Department had initiated “Operation Bhediya” to apprehend the pack of wolves responsible for recent attacks in 25-30 villages under Mahsi tehsil in the Bahraich range of Bahraich Forest Division. The Forest Department had captured the fifth ‘killer’ wolf on September 10. In order to capture the sixth wolf, the Forest Department in Bahraich had installed snap cameras at most of the probable habitats of wolves in the area to monitor any movement.

Three snap-cameras were installed in Sikandarpur village around six caves, which local villagers claim to be the habitat of the wolves. Nine people were killed and more than 40 people have been injured until now due to the attacks by the man-eater wolves in various villages of Bahraich.