I have seen this often near my hometown of Jabalpur. The city still contains wilderness bereft of others. There is a substantial population of chital deer, barking deer, Chinkara, sambar, wild boars, langurs, and peacock in the reserve forests surrounding Jabalpur City in Madhya Pradesh.
A pack of dogs (not dhole) chasing a deer or seeking one is often seen. Like any town in India stray dogs abound not only are they a menace to the human population as they carry rabies they have become a major threat to wildlife. The menace if not controlled will take a heavy toll on wildlife all over the country.
After the organized slaughter during the British Regime in India and subsequently, by the Maharajahs, Satraps, and Nawabs the pillars of imperialism in India, stray dogs are next. Natural predators like the wolf, jackal, fox, and hyena are losing ground and this is causing an imbalance in the predator-prey relationship - by the sheer numbers of stray dogs. The prey species in reserve forests, buffers, and periphery help support a greater number of predators that includes tigers and leopards.
The Central Indian Tiger Reserves the best managed in India also face this threat since every pocket of conserved ecosystem outside the CTH contains tigers and leopards. The gains we have made in terms of increasing tiger/leopard populations in the reserves will be done away by the stray dogs.
I believe this issue is being taken lightly. If the danger is realized to be of threatening proportion, stray dog population control will get impetus which anyway is a must.
Thanks to excellent conservation measures prey species in parks like Kanha have spread over the reserve forests in the periphery thus supporting greater numbers of predators. But this gain will be short-lived if preventive measures are not immediately put into action.
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| Chinkara |
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| Spotted Deer |
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| Jackals |
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| Barking Deer |
