'Love Trap' to be Laid for Bahraich’s Lame Wolf. What is the Forest Department’s New Strategy?

Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich continues to stay terrorized under wolf attacks. While the fifth wolf has been caught, the sixth and the last wolf, which is a lame one, continue to prey on women and children.

‘Operation Bhediya’ has been launched to catch the man-eating wolves in Bahraich with the help of drones, infrared cameras and thermal imaging cameras. In addition to this, elephant dung, ‘teddy dolls’ soaked in children’s urine, firecrackers are also being used in the operation.

However all these efforts have proved unsuccessful in capturing the lame wolf. In such a situation, the forest department team is now adopting the love formula to catch it.

Under this strategy, the forest department officials are luring it with a female wolf’s sound. They are playing ‘pre-recorded’ sounds of the female wolf screaming and crying on small loudspeakers. Officials hope that the lame wolf will be drawn to the female’s voice and will get trapped.

Bahraich District Forest Officer (DFO) Ajit Pratap Singh said, “This time we are undertaking a new experiment to catch the man-eating wolf. We are playing the ‘pre-recorded’ sounds of a female wolf crying and screaming on the loudspeaker. The volume of these loudspeakers has been kept just so that it sounds like the ‘voice of a real female wolf”.

He hoped that the lame wolf would get attracted by the voice similar to that of a female wolf and step in to the trap set by the forest department.

Thousands of people living across 50 villages in the Ghaghra river basin under Mahasi tehsil of Bahraich are in panic due to these wolf attacks. The first incident of attack by a man-eating wolf on a child took place in March. However, since July such attacks have been increasing.

These wolves often target children sleeping in their houses. In a span of one and a half months, the pack of wolves has killed ten people including women and children. Apart from this, these wolves have injured 35 people.

The Uttar Pradesh government has announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the families of those who lost their lives in wolf attacks. A separate compensation package has also been announced for the injured.