Bengaluru researchers map dhole behaviour in the Western Ghats

NCBS Bengaluru and WCS-India researchers found that people living and working near dholes can offer detailed observations of the endangered animals’ movements, pack sizes and behaviour in the Western Ghats.

One study drew on 476 interviews with local residents, plantation workers and Forest Department personnel in Wayanad, Kerala, and Valparai, Tamil Nadu. Their accounts mapped reported dhole activity in protected forests, reserve forests and agroforests, and recorded reported interactions with livestock, domestic dogs and other carnivores.

Tea plantations were frequent sites of reported encounters between people and dholes. Livestock attacks were reported as extremely rare, while many respondents said the animals avoided people. Reports of interactions with domestic dogs were more common. Researchers said these reports could help monitor competition and disease transmission between wild and domestic canids.

In Valparai, interviews with 89 community members also documented stories, songs, beliefs and spiritual associations around dholes. Some interviewees referred to them as “vettaikara apichi”, loosely translated as hunting gods. Residents described the animals’ coordinated hunting, calls, diet, breeding and use of the landscape.