Howls and growls among mangroves
A mysterious canid in Bangladesh
The Bangladesh Wolf
This mystery began in 2019, when the zoologist at Akash University, Muntasir Akash, saw a photo in a report showing an animal similar to a canine, beaten and dead, with his legs spread, hanging from makeshift poles.
The beast had been killed by the inhabitants of a remote village of Taltoli, in the Sundarbans of Bangladesh, the largest mangrove forest in the world, attracting their attention due to its appearance that was consistent with a wolf from afar, which is strange, since the last wolves had been seen in the 1940s, when Bangladesh was still part of Pakistan, So others said that it could be a jackal rather than a wolf, but Akash was sure, Even more so after receiving another series of photographs, I will put here the least risque one I found, here we have it:
Akash was sure it was an indian wolf, so soon akash traveled to the great mangrove system, going to where the wolf was buried, which with the help of a forest ranger he dug up to analyze it, despite the unpleasantness Because it had been dead for more than a week, he examined it, concluding after seeing the skull that it would be impossible for it to be a minor canine, there was no doubt, it was a wolf, the Bangladesh wolf, but that only increased doubts.
More mysteries
Wolves were supposed to have been extinct for too long in Bangladesh, not only are they supposed to no longer be found in the country, but they should not be found in the large Sundarbans mangroves, if it is an Indian wolf, since Indian wolves are creatures of the meadows, scrublands, deciduous forests and the areas between wildlife and agriculture, although this was not the first wolf to be found recently among the dense, muddy and watery mangroves, In 2017, wildlife photographer Riddhi Mukherjee took an extraordinary photo of a wolf on the Indian side of the Sundarbans, more than 300 kilometers (190 miles) away. from the nearest known wolf population in the Purulia district.
Theories have abounded, but the one that has the most force is that perhaps it is an isolated population, even more so because the Sundarbans are groups of islets and areas separated by deep rivers, This is also reinforced by the fact that the community's problems with the wolf did not begin until after Cyclone Fani passed through the region in early May 2019.
Then, suddenly, the cattle were attacked by an unknown animal; A calf was killed, some locals believed it was a tiger, since a hundred live in the Sundarbans of Ban, But “a dog-like animal was seen four times,” says Akash, adding that after a while, “the locals lost patience and caught it.”
Akash also believes that this potential enigmatic population has already been photographed numerous times over the past five years during tiger camera trap research, He believes that the photos of the wolves have been misidentified as jackals, also based on the fact that in 1953, A local hunter claimed to have killed a wolf in Noakhali, on the edge of Bangladesh's Sundarbans, although many thought it was a jackal.
Final answer
The possibility that the Bangladesh wolf is real is enormous. It may be that wolves never became completely extinct in Bangladesh or that some wolves, Under tremendous pressure from deforestation and grassland destruction, they are turning to a less suitable, but perhaps safer, habitat: the mangroves of the Sundarbans, or it may be a relict population of wolf, until now unclassified, let's hope Akash continues his research and gives us the answer to this fascinating mystery, It would be interesting if a new variety of wolf were described today and coming from that region it is likely that this will be the case.
[Reading Links]
https://es.mongabay.com/2019/11/lobo-de-bangladesh/
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