Hamirpur: Amid the wolf terror in Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich, a village in the Hamirpur district is gripped with fear after 26 sheep of a herd were killed in an attack by wild animals on Saturday night. Four of the sheep suffered critical injuries and 10 lambs are still missing.
The incident raised safety concerns among the people of Paatanpur village as forest officials inspected the area and footprints in the forest on Sunday to confirm it was a pack of hyenas that had struck. Senior police officers and the district magistrate have also visited the site.
Carcasses of more than two dozen sheep were scattered inside and outside the enclosure, as well as in the surrounding forest. Search is on for the missing lambs, two of which have also been found dead in the forest, local media reported.
The village is located in a rugged area with dense forests around and Kamhariya dam nearby. A resident named Ramnarayan Pal owns a farm outside the village with 60 to 70 sheep in an enclosure. The area did not have any security measures.
Ramnarayan’s sons, Jaiveer and Shivveer, look after the pen. On Saturday they had fed the sheep and put them in an enclosure while one of them went to sleep and his brother stayed awake to keep watch overnight. At around 3 am, the hyenas attacked the sheep, killing 26 of them, the report said.
The next morning, locals found carcasses of the sheep lying around the pen with injury marks from teeth on their necks, ruling a wild animal attack. According to the shepherd, the number of dead sheep could rise as two bodies of the 12 lambs that went missing have been found.
Forest Range Officer Tauheed Ahmad, along with forest guards Laxman Singh, Pushpendra, and chainman Azad, arrived at the scene and conducted an investigation. The DFO confirmed the attack was by hyenas based on the footprints. Commissioner Balkrishna Tripathi, DIG AK Singh, and DM Ghanshyam Meena have also inspected the site and assured of taking appropriate measures to ensure the villagers’ safety.