Endangered wolf killed by villagers
A group of local people in Barguna’s Taltali upazila have recently trapped and killed an endangered species of Indian wolf which, experts believe, had not been seen in the country since 1940s.
Deputy Commissioner of the district Kabir Mahmood told The Daily Star that the wild animal had been preying on the cattle of locals for the last couple of days.
On June 4, locals caught the animal by setting a trap and beat it to death, the DC added.
Later, the photographs of the dead animal were collected by Md Anwarul Islam, professor of zoology at Dhaka University, and sent to two leading canid specialists -- Dr Yadvendradev V Jhala, head of the department of animal ecology and conservation biology at the Wildlife Institute of India, and Dr Jan F Kamler, lead canid biologist at the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at University of Oxford.
The two specialists confirmed that the animal was a wolf, said Prof Anwar, who is also the CEO of WildTeam, a wildlife conservation organisation.
The professor said this species used to inhabit in northwest and the southwest region of the country until 1940s.
“We are going to conduct a DNA test to confirm the species of the animal,” Prof Anwar said, adding that they had already collected the DNA samples.
Grey wolf (Canis lupus) is considered as the most primitive and among the rarest species of canine alive today with the remaining population living in Europe, Asia and North America and Indian wolf (Canis lupus pallipes) is a subspecies of grey wolf that ranges from Southwest Asia to the Indian Subcontinent.
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