Sanctuary | Species Focus
A casual conversation in a
remote high-altitude village three years
ago navigated my life path astray. I had
visited Spiti in Himachal Pradesh with my
family only to discover that there’s more
to the land than meets the eye. I saw
Spitians dealing with life in their inherent
resilient way. If growing food in a windy
desert 4,000 m. above sea level, hauling
snow melt by hand, walking 10-15 km. to
fetch dung-fuel in a treeless landscape,
getting little or no access to healthcare,
gaining daily wage employment and
educating their children wasn’t enough,
they had predator attacks on their
precious livestock to deal with.A VICTIM OF MYTH
Life in Spiti isn’t as peachy as a biker’s
Facebook post and in spite of the
Spitian’s deep-rooted connection to the
earth and acceptance that predators too
need to eat, when livestock is killed, it’s
the absolute last straw for the owner.
Sometimes someone, and in this scenario,
the wolf – the underdog – often pays
the price. Wolf attacks on livestock do
occur but in far fewer numbers than
people presume. It’s more likely to be a
combination of demonising wolf myths,
the physical presence of wolves and the
need for a scapegoat that brings forth
people’s wrath on wolves. As I recently
discovered, it’s the same story even a
continent away, in the affl uent world ofRowland fi nally, gave him the noble burial
he deserved and went on to write about
lessons learnt from the wild. All of it
sounds like romantic fi ction, but isn’t.
I am neither qualifi ed nor trained to
be a conservationist. I made a deal with
myself. In October 2016, I decided to
go look for wolves to convince myself
they exist instead of chasing ghosts.
Volunteering with an NGO in Spiti, I went
on to acquaint myself with the local
community: to get their perceptions of
wildlife, talk about confl icts with wolves
and snow leopards, get their views on
tourism and listen to ideas they might
like to share. After speaking to several
families privately in their homes and
fi elds, I was surprised to fi nd out that
the biggest threat to livestock in winter
was neither the wolf nor the snow
leopard, but the feral dogs that hunted
in packs and killed livestock as a result of
food scarcity. Naturally, the locals look
unfavourably on dogs as well, but that
is something I hope will change in
the future.WILD SIGHTING
As my stay drew to a close, I scanned the
horizon for my ‘wolf sign’. My chances of
spotting a wolf were looking bleaker than
fi nding a needle in a haystack. Several
people predicted so. I had a single free
day – a single window – to try and stay
true to the wolf and myself. I turned a
deaf ear to bad counsel and marched
on regardless, in search of my elusive
underdog. It was more challenging than
I assumed.
On a cold evening, I travelled to
an unfamiliar village, the base for
my ascent to a high-altitude lake at
approximately 4,500 m. Starting out
at 3:30 a.m., I trekked under a star-
dusted sky accompanied by Kunga, a
local. The territory was new to both
of us. In no time at all, we were both
cold and lost (unknown to us, there
was a perfectly easy path up). I was
clambering up − sometimes on all fours
− a 60º scree slopes, which felt more
like 75º. I moved on mindlessly, like a
determined, migrating beast. By the time
I ascended to the top, I was so breathless
I wondered if it was high-altitude or plain
exhaustion that would kill me fi rst.Lower Saxony, Germany: “the wolf has
to go.”
Though I never personally saw or
heard of a proven wolf attack in Spiti
while I was there, the undercurrent
fl ipped a switch in my over imaginative
brain. I decided there and then I needed
to do something about an animal I really
knew nothing about and had never set
eyes on – the intelligent and elusive
Himalayan wolf Canis himalayensisUNCHARTERED TERRITORY!
My limited knowledge of wolves comes
from reading novels and not research
papers. Somewhere in my subconscious,
I carry this image of Farley Mowat
transporting jerry cans of vodka in the
guise of aviation fuel as he prepares
to fl y out in search of wolves, alone,
in sub-arctic Canada. He lived like the
wolves, urine marking his territory and
eating mice when there was no caribou.
I picture Jiang Rong (pseudonym), the
young Chinese student, during his harsh
posting in inner Mongolia, stumbling
on the pack of wolves that inspired his
most fascinating novel in the thick of the
Chinese revolution. I cannot but mention
Mark Rowland, the philosophy professor,
who kept a wolf called Brenin − posing
as a pet dog − in the U.S. for the whole
duration of its lifetime. Rowland got
away with it. Running and living with
Brenin, nursing him through sickness,Scat signs such as these that the author came across during her expeditions in Germany help
researchers determine wolf populations and understand their behaviour.LALITHA KRISHNAN