After ‘soft release’, Gujarat now closer to sending captive-bred wolves into the wild

The project, undertaken by Gujarat’s Forest Department, to introduce wolves bred in captivity into the wild is the first of its kind outside the US, officials said. It is aimed at restocking the population of wolves in the wild, where they can perform their role as biocontrol agents that keep the population of wild herbivores, like nilgai (blue bulls) and wild boars under control.

Mulu Bera, the state’s Forest and Environment minister, told The Indian Express that he had received several complaints from farmers about the increasing number of nilgai becoming a menace to them, and that “an increase in wolf population can help address the problem”.

Thus, five wolves, all of which were bred in captivity, were brought to the soft-release facility at Nada Bet in Banaskantha from the Sakkarbaug Zoological Park in Junagadh as part of a five-phase plan to integrate them to the wild and prepare them to be able to hunt nilgai and wild boars, which are also protected species under the Wildlife Protection Act, but are also wolves’ prey.

Minister Bera said that out of the 80 wolves that were at the Sakkarbaug breeding centre, 16 had been moved to different facilities in the state to train them to be released into the wild. Apart from the facility at Nada Bet, the other wolves are in facilities located in the Gir forest in the Saurashtra region.

The project got going in August when four male wolves were brought from the Sakkarbaug centre to the Nada Bet facility. Later, two of the male wolves were sent back, and in their place, three females were brought in. This was because officials felt that an all-male group may not form a stable pack by themselves.

After being brought to the facility, the wolves were put in quarantine for two months before being released, in early October, into the four-hectare enclosure that includes grassland, woodland and other habitats. Since then, they have completed the first phase of their preparation by adapting to the local ecology and environment, and the second phase of demonstrating behaviour similar to wild wolves, officials said.

“We already see a revival of wild instinct in them. These wolves have already learnt to hunt poultry and wild birds and eat only the flesh of their prey while avoiding feathers and intestines… This is a marked progress for the wolves that used to eat even the feathers when we started giving them live poultry birds during quarantine,” an official monitoring the project said.

“The area, which was fenced last summer, had a few hares. But neither the hares nor their pugmarks are visible these days, meaning the wolves have taken them…,” the official said. In the initial days, the wolves used to stay near the monitoring building adjacent to the enclosure and wait for their daily quota of chicken.

Phase three of the wolves’ preparation involves the hunting of mammals like small wild boars and nilgai, as well as reptiles like monitor lizards. “We are waiting for a green signal from the project steering committee, headed by principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife) and the chief wildlife warden of Gujarat, to start this crucial phase,” the official said.

The project is part of the forest department’s ambitious plan to restore the ecological balance in the grasslands and parts of revenue areas where the population of wild boars, nilgai, and other such herbivores has been growing unchecked, leading to damage of standing crops of farmers.