The other day on my evening walk outside Munnar, I rounded a bend to find two wild dogs loping towards me, their tawny coats glistening in the sunlight. I froze in my tracks — and so did they. For a few suspenseful moments we eyed each other with mutual distrust and fear. Then, to my great relief, the canines actually turned and fled. I took a cue from this and hastened my way back home.

The incident triggered a chain of thoughts — mostly gruesome — for the wild dog has an unsavoury reputation in these parts. Once I witnessed a pack literally tearing a sambar stag apart in the nearby Eravikulam National Park — a sight as rare as it was gory. On another occasion, in just one day I counted as many as eight sambar skeletons in the park, picked clean to the bone by wild dogs.

Last year I chanced upon a trio pursuing a barking deer through a tea field. Minutes later agonised squealing signalled the end of a successful hunt — I didn’t dare go near! And I’ve seen even a ferocious Alsatian quail at the sight of wild dogs. Their mean and ravenous look does instill fear in most living beings.

Deadly predators, wild dogs take a heavy toll of Munnar’s deer population. So much so that the former British planters considered them vermin and shot them at sight, urging others to do so as well. Wild dog heads and pelts adorned their sitting rooms, along with other shikar trophies.

... contd.