Residents of a village in West Midnapore’s Salboni killed an Indian Wolf on July 29 after it had strayed in and started killing goats. Locally called Hural or Hurar, the species has become rare because of indiscriminate killing.

The chief conservation of forest (western circle), Sakti Dey, said the animal that had been killed was not a wolf, but naturalist Kushal Mukherjee identified it as an Indian Wolf after seeing the carcass (inset). “The sighting of an Indian Wolf has become rare. Though there is no data, conservationists suspect Indian wolves could be fewer than the Royal Bengal Tiger,” Mukherjee said.

In Bengal, Indian wolves are found in Bankura, Purulia and parts of Midnapore and Burdwan. They mostly feed on pigs and goats.

“We were tipped off by Rakesh Singha Dev, a schoolteacher. We went there and found the animal dead,” said Suvrajyoti Chatterjee, a conservation worker.