Lupine Mayhem
Culture and History, Kyrgyzstan2 Comments
Unlike the United States, where wolves are considered an endangered species and protected, Kyrgyzstan faces an exploding population of wolves that are becoming a menace.
Experts suggest the wolf population has multiplied three- or fourfold in recent years [in Kyrgyzstan].
Attacks would normally be rare, restricted only to instances when a wolf is suffering from extreme hunger. But they are no longer a rarity. Some of the stories tell of savage assaults. Passing a field in the Chui region of Kyrgyzstan, a taxi driver, Bakyt Mailiev, said, “recently on this field, wolves threw themselves on two tractor drivers. One managed to save himself by hiding in the tractor, but in front of his very eyes the wolves ate his colleague. All that remained of the man were a few body parts. Since then, we’ve been afraid of getting out of the car in these parts.”
Incredibly, some hunters are now literally resorting to gas warfare to deal with the population increase.
Kyrgyzstan’s situation is not unique. According to the International Wolf Center, the world trend is an increase in the wolf population.
About 83 percent of the countries indicated that wolf numbers were stable or increasing, while 17 percent suggested they were decreasing.
The article did not specify a reason for this population explosion.
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Mongolia has the same problem, in the communist days, there were wolf culling seasons but that no longer exists.
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While camping in the Chong Kemin mountains in northern Kyrgyzstan I came across a very fresh wolf kill of a horse just off the main road into the national park. The ground was still soaked dark with blood. The throat had been torn open and the body ripped open from the anus to the chest revealing an open rib cage and internal organs. Rear limbs had been gnawed to the bone. The horse was owned by a farmer who said he had lost five horses to wolves in the last ten days. The wolves would appear at the edge of a clearing every day but he had no firearm he could use to kill them. He had sent his brother to their village to get poison to bait a dead horse carcass. This type of wolf activity is economically devastating for the local population.
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