Into the wild: When animals come calling

livemint.com:

The News Minute, in October 2016, reported that people in Thiruvananthapuram went on a “reckless killing spree by beating 27 strays to death" after a 90-year-old man died from a dog attack. And in May 2018, Hindustan Times reported that villagers in Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur killed eight dogs in retaliation after some strays attacked locals.

“Certainly, sharing space with wildlife that can adversely impact human lives and livelihoods is testing," said Pranav Chanchani, lead species specialist at WWF-India. “That tigers, elephants and other large mammals have persisted against many odds is testimony to the willingness and ability of people to accommodate wildlife and also the result of decades of conservation.

As India advances economically and technologically, the state and its people bear an ever-greater responsibility to sustain biodiversity and maintain the integrity of fragile ecosystems," he added. Abi T Vanak, director of the Center for Policy Design and a senior fellow at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, said there were around a 100 dog maulings a year and a further 18,000 fatalities because of rabies.

In the case of dog attacks, it was likely because of increasing human and dog populations, Vanak said, adding that in the case of elephants, habitat loss also contributed. The story of India’s complicated relationship with its animals can perhaps best be described by the travails of a wild elephant locally known as Arikomban (a portmanteau of the Malayalam words Ari, meaning rice and komban, meaning tusker).