Wildlife Information and Nature Guides Society (WINGS), a Durgapur-based organization has been entrusted with the conservation and study of endangered Indian grey wolf population in forests of West Burdwan district, the project has been funded by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Talking to The Statesman today, Saptarshi Mukherjee, president of WINGS, Durgapur said that the organization is working on the Indian grey wolves since 2020, but recently has started the WWF funded project work for conservation, study and research of indian grey wolves in West Burdwan district.

“There was a time when the entire Chota Nagpur Plateau was the safe haven of Indian grey wolves and used to be found in West Burdwan, Purulia, Bankura, Jhargram districts. But since the population explosion, illegal tree felling and encroachments in forest lands along with setting up of industry and coal mining, the Indian grey wolf population almost vanished in this area,” added Saptarshi Mukherjee.

He said that in 2018, a WBSEDL employee Arnes Bose had spotted the first wolf in West Burdwan district. He took a snap and handed it over to the forest department after which Wings also started research.

Two villages Madhaigung and Saraswatigunj in Andal area, WINGS started interaction with the local villagers and formed a team. They started collecting information about wolf populations, their habitats, and prey. “It was a tough job for us as the predators used to hunt their poultry regularly but we took several measures and almost helped them to reduce their pet loss like ducks, chicken, goats etc by guarding the poultry and goatery with coloured flags,” he said.

Basically it was a project of human-wildlife mitigation and WINGS was somehow successful based on which WWF has entrusted them with the new job.

“We managed to set up a village committee on a pilot basis who will work for the wolf conservation job after convincing the villagers a lot about the requirement of Indian grey wolf in the ecosystem,” Saptarshi Mukherjee said.

In West Burdwan, 14 areas have been earmarked for the survey work like Pandaveswar, Chittaranjan, Jamgram, Bijpur etc. The field survey work has already started with the help of WWF fund trap cameras have been set up and Systematic cause analysis techniques (SCAT) cat analysis work has started to identify the exact number of wolf population.

“In Madhaigunj and Saraswatigunj in Pandaveswar already about 14-member wolf population, including female, adults, sub adults and cubs have been spotted and the number is increasing, hopefully. In 2023, Wings had organized an awareness campaign with 200 students in Laudoha KTB Institution,” he said.

He has been assisted by Arkajyoti Mukherjee, secretary on Wings, who has completed his PhD on birds from IIT Kharagpur. Manish Kumar Chatterjee, a member of the group, has been working on the animals since the last five years in Madhaipur and Biharinath Hills. He has taken photographs of the Indian grey wolves found in the forest covers of West Burdwan district.

Tamalik Chandra, officer of the Asansol Territorial forest range said that the study will definitely give some new inputs about the Indian grey wolves which had disappeared from this belt many decades ago.

Dr Anupam Khan, divisional forest officer (DFO) of Durgapur has said that the conservation of Indian grey wolves is of immense importance to maintain the ecosystem. “Conservation will help the next generation to see and know this beautiful animal which is famous for its howling,” he added.

The Indian grey wolf is an endangered species and its population in the country is between 2,000 to 3,000, which means less than the total tiger population in India.