11-05-2025
Who let the dogs out?
Kadbanwadi (Pune)
The Kadbanwadi grassland of the Deccan plateau wear a different colour depending on the season: in summer the grass shimmers gold; in monsoon the grassland turn parakeet green. About 276 kilometres away from Maharashtra's capital of Mumbai, atop a hill is the Kadbanwadi village, on the edge of the grassland that stretches across about 2,000 hectares, in Indapur tehsil of Pune district.
Here, the shepherd community — the Shegar Dhangar — has coexisted with animals and birds through time. The Bengal fox, striped hyena, and Brahminy kite are few in number. The Indian grey wolf is considered the guardian of the grassland. As an apex predator, it indicates the health of the ecosystem, regulating the numbers of smaller predators and herbivores.
These wolves, brown with black-and-white markings on their backs, are on the 'Red List' of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, an environmental network, meaning they are at risk of extinction. The species is also on India's Schedule I list of animals, which receive the highest level of protection.
There are many reasons for the slow disappearance of these wolves. Among them is habitat loss, because of agriculture and semi-urban expansion into grasslands, say scientists and Forest Department officials. Over the past decade however, an additional threat has emerged: free-ranging dogs that hunt in packs.
These animals, descendants of domesticated dogs, have streaks of wild behaviour. They have begun to appear in villages around the grassland to scavenge on the waste dumped by cities.
Kadbanwadi has a few poultry farms, which are, as per the usual practice, located at some distance from urban centres. A poultry farm worker in Kadbanwadi says, 'We are supposed to bury the dead, but the dogs come for the carcasses and become aggressive.'
From the villages, the dogs, which usually hunt in packs of 12-17, but can range from packs of five to 50, fan out into the grassland, where the foxes live. Wolf pups are vulnerable to dogs that live around villages and grassland. Every interaction with a dog carries threats of disease and hybridisation of the wolf species, posing significant dangers to their already declining population.
As per the Forest Department, from 2016 till a few years ago, Kadbanwadi had at least 70 adult wolves. In December 2024, they spotted 11. There were six as per the most recent count.
Disease and disappearance
In January 2025, two wolves died of canine distemper virus (CDV), a highly contagious disease found in dogs, in Indapur tehsil. 'CDV poses a significant threat to wolves impacting their health and survival,' says Ajit Suryawanshi, a Range Forest Officer in Indapur.
CDV among wolves can be transmitted when they come into direct contact with an infected dog or through fomites, which can further infect other animals around them, explains Dr. Sujit Kolangath, a veterinary doctor at the Wildlife Research & Training Centre, Maharashtra Animal & Fishery Sciences University, Nagpur.
Suryawanshi says that dogs attack the wolves when they find them to be fewer in number, weaker, or isolated. 'These dogs are ferocious. The cross-breeding between stray dogs and wolves can lead to genetic dilution of wolf populations, disrupt the wolf pack structures, and create hybrids with unpredictable behaviours and health issues.'
Mihir Godbole, the founder and president of Pune-based The Grasslands Trust, which works towards biodiversity conservation, says his organisation has multiple photographs from the area of hybrid-looking wolf-dogs.
Wolves can contract rabies from dogs, especially where the dog population is high. There is no count of the dogs, though villagers say they have spotted between six and eight packs. When the wolves interact with these dogs, disease spreads through bites, saliva, or scratches. Canine parvovirus, which can cause mortality and disrupt pack dynamics, is the third documented disease, also transmitted through dogs and other canines like foxes.
The days of the wolves
Bhajandas Pawar, 67, a retired high school teacher and a former sarpanch of Kadbanwadi village, says people have always coexisted with the wolves. As a science teacher, he would tell children stories about the food chain and ecosystems.
Sitting under the shade of a neem tree, he says, 'When I was a child, I remember seeing up to 25 wolves at a time in the grassland. While brushing my teeth every morning, I watched the wolves feeding on chinkara (Indian gazelle) or deer. Their pups would play in the grassland. There used to be some mornings in the village when the wolves were found to have attacked and fed on domestic goats.'
Bhajandas and some villagers consider wolf attacks on livestock a sign of luck. 'If a wolf takes away one goat, we believe it is a blessing and that it will bring prosperity next year,' he says.
Wolf attacks are now uncommon. Instead, the dogs that attack the shepherds' flocks. Lata Anil Gawade, 44, who lives in Kadbanwadi, says each time she or her children take the sheep and goats out to graze, the dogs chase them. She remembers one incident when, from a pack of about eight dogs, an aggressive female ran after her children. 'I no longer let the children take the animals out,' she says, adding that the goats had scratch marks when she went back in the evening to bring them home.
Her son, Suyog Anil Gawade, 24, says their relatives in Baramati have reported several incidents of dogs biting cattle and people.
Rushikesh Gawade, a PhD scholar at IIT Bombay, studying the shepherd community, grew up in Kadbanwadi listening to the stories of how wolves stalked shepherds to steal a sheep or two. 'Kadbanwadi is a settlement of shepherds. The grassland around the village served as an excellent pasture for the shepherds. It is apparent from the stories that a symbiotic relationship has existed between the shepherds and the wolves.'
Back then, stray dogs weren't seen in the region. 'We started seeing them only in the last 10 years. However, the decline in the population of wolves cannot be blamed on the dogs alone.' He says the declining practice of shepherding itself is a reason.
As part of a reserve forest, the Kadbanwadi grassland is protected. Mangesh Tate, the Assistant Conservator of Forests, Pune, quotes the Maharashtra Forest Rules, 2014, which state that if the forest officer is unable 'to chase away or capture the dog or any other domesticated or trained animal… out of the limits of such forest without delay, it shall be lawful for him to kill or cause such trespassing animal to be killed or trapped or removed from the forest… whether or not, the animal has frightened, driven away, wounded or killed any wild animal'.
However, Forest Department officials are wary of killing dogs out of fear of a backlash from animal rights activists and dog lovers. The officials say they are considering vaccinating the dogs, but the process is difficult because the dogs are not easy to catch.
Human-wildlife conflict researcher and senior research fellow at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune, Akashdeep Roy, says the rising population of free-ranging dogs is a serious concern for wildlife and humans.
'We have to invest in unlearning in the conservationist domain and in civil society, especially among the 'so-called' dog lovers. Annually, there have been over 18,000 human casualties due to rabies in India and 22 lakh dog bite cases, of which 48 resulted in deaths, were reported in the country last year.'
Out in the grassland
It's 9 a.m. and the sun is already blazing over Indapur. A team of wildlife researchers, a photographer, and a Forest Department guard venture into the grassland. There are 50 waterholes where gazelles, common here, drink water. They hide behind tall grasses as they hear cars approaching. It takes them a while to get used to the camera.
The area has various kinds of trees: neem, babul, and gliricidia sepium, which is native to the tropics of Central America. Raju Pawar, a guide and an Indapur resident, says these trees were planted 30 years ago to save the open grassland from encroachment. 'Recently we learnt that the grassland does not require such trees, so we have stopped further plantations,' he says.
Four students: Tanya Drolia, Khushi Rathore, Shubham Mamania, and Nivedita Moorthy, from Symbiosis School of Visual Arts and Photography, Pune, have been documenting the wolves for over a year. They have been here since 4 a.m.
Drolia says their documentary, Ghost of the Deccan Grasslands, started as an independent initiative, but they have received support from their institution. 'We aim to screen the documentary at universities, wildlife research institutes, and conservation summits to spark discussions about the conservation status of the Indian wolves. To create public awareness, we want to screen it in areas where wolves coexist with humans, as local communities play a crucial role in conservation,' she adds.
Around 7 p.m. the temperature dips and the sun begins to set. A mother fox is lying outside her den, while her pups play around. They notice the cameras, but are not bothered by them. A few moments later, a sleepy hyena comes out of its den and stretches, only to fall asleep again. By this hour, the colour of the grassland changes and merges with the colour of the animals.
The howling begins from across the grassland. With the entry of wolves, the movement of feral dogs is also spotted . The guard says it is time for the hunting to begin and for humans to leave the grassland.
(Edited by Sunalini Matthew)
