Wolves blamed for deaths of seven children

Wolves have killed at least seven children and injured more than a dozen people in northern India over the last three months, officials said today.

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, 80 miles 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, said.

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 criticised 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.