The legend of the lone wolf, conquering the world is the stuff of myths. The wolves love their packs and are lost without them, lone wolves often perish in the wild. Maybe that is why I felt a sense of sadness when I watched the news coverage on the Baihraich wolf attacks. While it's a tragedy the man-wild conflict has created, but the way the media has been painting the wolves as these blood thirsty man-eating monsters is sometimes a bit too over the top. Am I the bad person feeling sorrier for the wolves than for the men?
The wolf is just going about its business hunting for food. Its lame, unable to get at faster moving prey. It has no clue that a death sentence has been passed on it and its pack. Five of the pack of the six have been captured, two of which apparently died during capture. It seems this has only made the attacks worse. The lone lame wolf is now more ferocious, lost without its companions, possibly trying to get at as much food as possible. The media screaming into our television screens condemning these wolves as "adamkhor". At least the ones they have captured so far don't seem to be it, their capture hasn't put an end to the killings. What's worse is no one knows for sure if it's the wolves, an alternative theory of hybrid wolfdogs, bred by humans for protection and then abandoned when they get too difficult to manage, also exists.
The Indian wolf is one of the most ancient of the species, it is endangered and on the protected list. Its numbers are in the thousands now and could someday possibly go extinct. They are known to be cautious of humans and very rarely attack them. Grown adult weight around 18kgs and is no true danger to an adult armed human.
Watching one of the news reports after a shoot at sight order had been issued by our wonderful Chief Minister, I was heartened to see that the forest department had put out pamphlets talking about, among other things, how the villagers should protect themselves and also how the wolves are part of our ecosystem and should not be feared. At least they have chosen to ignore the shoot at sight and tried to capture instead of kill. They also highlighted a need for lighting in isolated roads and building walls and doors to protect the villagers at night, instead of simply resorting to killing. Small victory for nature.
It's humans who attribute intent and characteristics to animals - sly like a fox, loyal like a dog, unreliable like a cat. The animals at a very fundamental level are innocent. What they do is out of an instinct to survive, some endear themselves to us, like little dogs with heart melting eyes, some scare us with their fangs and claws, but they never act on malicious instinct. They are not driven by hatred or revenge as the media person would have us believe. Perhaps there is a possibility to create feelings of trust or mistrust, and some attachment, like with dogs or cats, or even other animals and birds. But at their very core animals are innocent.
I wonder where along the evolutionary line humans became so twisted and complicated, and why no other animal did. We are singlehandedly responsible for almost destroying this planet as we know it. We are responsible for more deaths in a year than any other animal on this planet. What price do we pay for our action? Well, maybe we do, we are slowly killing ourselves with our roads and houses in places where none should exist. I suspect one day trees will again grow where we sit and spend our days imagining some trivial glory of our insignificant lives. In truth we are not harming this planet; we are harming the ecosystem we need to survive. Earth has seen worse and survived, been pelted by asteroids, seen ice ages, has literally broken into pieces from being one landmass. She will continue to live on, she gives, and she takes back at will.
