Feral Dogs Killing Nilgai/Blue Bull

[Vikram]

A guy posted this photo on Sanctuary Asia's Facebook page.

Not unnatural or unusual, but I don't know if the forest department is taking action. Those who are aware, is it a big problem in your parts? As a kid I witnessed once a couple of strays bringing down a donkey to eat. The dogs were taken care off promptly. Let us not make it a tirade against all stray dogs but keep it focused on feral dogs and wildlife. Thank you.







Best-
Vikram

[brihacharan]

> It saddened me to see the poor Nilgai (bleeding from the snout) standing helpless, surrounded by blood thirsty feral dogs.
> It reminded me of a similar situation I witnessed many years ago in Dharwad (Karnataka State - India) where a young calf was killed by feral dogs who literally chased on-lookers trying to pull the carcass away. These dogs appeared to be of mixed breed - probably off-springs of pedigreed ones & local parihas.
> BTW - In the suburban area of Mumbai where I live there are over a dozen stray dogs which are fed with loafs & biscuits by residents in that area. They often chase school going children & vendors and can be heard howling in the middle of the night.
> Residents of the area who have complained to the Municipal Dog Catching Unit have turned a deaf ear - apparently because the SPCA are against it (Several years ago these stray dogs were caught by the municipality & gassed).
> One way to curb the growing population of these feral dogs is to neuter the males
Briha

[kanwar76]

Who cares about blue bull when even childrens are being killed by strays.

[Safarigent]

Some one send this to maneka gandhi. It would be good to see whether she comes down on the poor neelgais or dogs side

[AgentDoubleS]

Some one send this to maneka gandhi. It would be good to see whether she comes down on the poor neelgais or dogs side

I think the photographer is going to jail.

[Kittu]

hi
its same problum near gorkhpur nuklear power plant.where government have fenced with wire and deers running from stray dogs are caught in these fences and killed.more then 9 deers are killed in 7 days by stray dogs

[Katana]

My farm is surrounded by three villages. Now once in a while, these feral dogs chase the nilgais. Somehow, these dogs can't keep pace with them. Maybe the dogs just don't have the stamina. However, what I have noticed is that the alpha male will usually divert off with the dogs chasing him and then double back to the herd once the dogs are tired or lose interest. The only casualty in this almost daily rigmarole is my standing crop!

However, I have lost a calf to these dogs once. They just cornered her while grazing and bit out her stomach. Died three days later of infections.

[timmy]

One of my uncles was quite a hunter, and back in the early 60s was Boone & Crockett for Polar and Griz. He loved dogs all his life, but the saying when gunfire was heard around the small Texas town where he lived was to comment that he was shooting stray dogs again. No stray dogs were allowed to roam his small ranch, and he had many stories that justified his shooting them. He was a true hunter and crack shot, and when his gun spoke, it commonly accomplished what he intended.

My old boss and mentor has a ranch just across the New Mexico barder in Colorado. It has been in his family since Columbus landed -- almost. He runs about 1000 head of sheep and 300 head of cattle, and dog packs are a big problem for him, as well. He also has his own dogs and deals with free running dogs like my uncle in Texas did.

Once, he heard a commotion in the field next to ha house, and saw a pack of dogs attacking his sheep. He ran back into the house, grabbed his 30-30, and sent lead flying. He dropped some of the attacking dogs, and the others ran off. They did get a few of his sheep, though.

It turned out that one of the dogs was the school superintendent's pet, who lived down the road. The superintendent tried to claim, when the sheriff arrived, the the blood around his dead dog's mouth was from his dog trying to protect the sheep. He was a city slicker and nobody blelieved this story, and he had to make restitution for the dead sheep.

But that wasn't the end of the story. The school superintendent maneuvered to get my boss's wife fired, who worked for the school system, as revenge.

Still, this wasn't the end of the story. Few ever crossed my boss and got away with it. He mounted a campaign for friendly candidates for the next school board election and got a majority on the school board. The school board then fired the supereintendent. My boss had taken Election Day off and was cruising the farm roads, getting farmers from off of their tractors and taking them to the polls. He also took the day after Election Day off, as his victory celebration was a good one.

This story showed me that even pet dogs will run with a wild pack, or even form one. Millions of years of instinct are not so easily bred out of any animal. It is a shame that people must loose their pets in this way, but an even bigger shame is that their pet pays for their irresponsibility. As far as I'm concerned, if a dog is out running loose in the country like that, it is open season on them for whoever can shoot them. This is the way in the American West.. As I said, this is a shame, but feral dogs and cats do make a bad impact on already stressed populations of wildlife. If people won't be responsible, I believe the property owner is justified in shooting such feral predators, pets or not.

[dev]

I have seen dogs chasing a herd of Neelgai in the Sultanpur bird sanctuary. While the Neelgai looked hassled they outrun the dogs most of the time. What was scary was how relentless the dogs were. I have seen dogs trying to hunt goats near the yamuna by trying to get them into the river.
Dogs seem to go back into their wild state very easily.

[airgun_novice]

Reminded me of the night when we had just shifted to Thane and were back after watching a late night film. Had two sleeping kids in two arms and a scared wife dangling from the neck choking me; we were surrounded by 25-30 salivating and barking feral dogs. Sends a chill even now when I recollect that event. Probably the Good Lady up there was watching upon us; else we would have been torn to shreds. Poor Nilgai, in this picture seems to stand no chance.

[a_kamal]

Dear Guys,

The feral dogs maybe filling in for wolves to keep in check the nilgai population but even a pack of 10 is no match for a big nilgai ,In uttar pradesh people involved with farming have a tough job saving their crops from this scorge of (nilgai) it is a misnomer and cause of much trouble in certain areas , so i prefer to call them bluebull .

now no doubt that this animal has become a pest, perfecty at home in scrub jungle, sugarcanes, Arhar, Mango & Bamboo groves practically anyplace which provides shelter and food is a good place for them to live and breed .

UP forest department rejoiced when they reported that wolves along the gangetic plain have increased somewhat and are controlling the population of BlueBulls by preying on their young .

coming back to the subject of feral dogs hunting and killing bluebull is not a favourable situation though intially it looks beneficial but since they cannot survive entirely on the bluebull hunting and given to their proximity to villages , sooner or later these feral dogs start killing domestic pets like Pigs,Goats,poultry, young calves and even children in extreme cases are attacked though these attacks are not allways fatal ,

One suct situation happened on the advent of such feral pack of dogs totalling 7 in nos , their presence was indicated by occasional late night fightings with village pariah dogs on the garbage dump , and then they made their purpose clear by cornering a pig by deliberately attacking and isolating it from the herd despite the best efforts of the two lads incharge of the heard , the village was filed with heart wrenching screams of the pig under attack , this continued for 15-20 minutes in torrential rain , happily pig had a providential escape upon intervention by some buffaloes .

however a goat was pulled down and a donkey baldy mauled in next couple of weeks , but the last starw which sealed their fate and signed their death warrant was wanton killing our pet cat , the pack was eliminated within 2 days with concerted efforts of the whole village.

[essdee1972]

Kenneth Anderson has a good piece on a similar issue. Killing of a cute little deer calf by a leopard. The leopard (or feral dogs) needs to hunt, to fill its belly, to survive. Evolution (or God, whatever you believe) has made the dog or the lion a carnivore, and the deer and Nilgai a herbivore. Killing of herbivores by carnivores is natural. Nature, as some wise person observed, is truly red in tooth and claw. On top of that we, the unnatural additions to nature, have polished off most of the habitats, forcing carnivores to, in management jargon, think out of the box.

It is only the bleedin' heart "civilised" humans who seek to turn back the natural order of things by killing, or rather massacring, carnivores because "the bad lion killed the good deer". Pretty much what my kid used to say when he was even younger that what he is now!

Nilgai being a pest or not, the dogs pedigree or lack thereof, have absolutely no bearing on the issue. Predators and prey is the oldest relationship in the history of the earth. And yes, when a prey goes down, he does give vent to heart-wrenching screams, sprays of blood, death-struggles, and so on. That is natural. What is unnatural here is the presence of a "do-gooder" on two legs with weapons (or numbers) strong enough to kill the poor predator in a sickening display of "vengeance" (another unnatural, human trait!).

And of course, I am not even mentioning the struggles and screams of the dying chickens and goats and sheep and cows and pigs and so on which the carnivores amongst us eat!

[StampMaster]

I have raised 7 pet dogs for the last 23 years. A few months ago, i had 2- Snuffy and Alex. As the compound gate was left open by a lunatic, Alex went out and was bitten by other dogs. Wounds were so bad that Alex died after 2 days after going through severe pain. And this continued with neighbors pet and domestic animals. Only after multiple complaints to the municipality, this problem has been sorted out to a bit.

My great grand-mom, who spend most of her life in the wild (now township) has encouraged me having pet dogs. But she always warned me about the behavioral and food changes. And she did mention that "once a dog tastes blood, then it would would convert into a blood thirsty monsters" and to get rid of them ASAP.

[skeetshot]

Many years back, I would estimate somewhere in the late 60s, I witnessed an amazing sight in the interaction of dogs and Nilgai:

There was a female blue bull and accompanying her was a calf.

Two dogs appeared and started chasing the calf, who ran around its mother avoiding them.

Suddenly, the mother rushed at a dog and CAUGHT IT ABOVE THE NECK AND LIFTED THAT DOG

She then released it and the dog rushed off as did the other dog.

No yelping, no sound at all .

Both mother and calf resumed their grazing.