Terror Creating Jackal's Corpse Found Near Trail-5

The terror creating jackal at Trail-5 of Margalla Hills National Park (MHNP), who attacked and injured several hikers a couple of days back at the trail, was found dead in the forest area of the hiking track

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Feb, 2020 ) :The terror creating jackal at Trail-5 of Margalla Hills National Park (MHNP), who attacked and injured several hikers a couple of days back at the trail, was found dead in the forest area of the hiking track.

Assistant Director Islamabad Wildlife Management board (IWMB) Sakhawat Ali told APP that around 3-4 days back the IWMB rangers during a routine patrolling in the jungle area of Trail-5 recovered the jackal's corpse. It was decomposed and might be 4-5 days old where the cause of death would be the cold weather due to past heavy rains in the Federal capital, he added.

"The situation has never been that dangerous if the affected hikers had avoided making unnecessary hue and cry during encounter with the jackal. This specie does not attack humans unless it has rabies virus developed in it," Sakhawat mentioned.

However, the human intrusions made by hikers and tourists had resulted into such human-wildlife conflict.

Earlier, a video of six-month back went viral on social media in which a jackal could be seen biting a tourist. "This incident has occurred approximately in July, 2019. As the people presumed it as recent issue, the Municipal Corporation Islamabad (MCI) dog shooters have been called to shot down the particular wild jackal biting the hikers," he said.

He said the dog shooters were visiting the site after every two days in a week at alternate occasions. Another reason for this human-wildlife conflict was increasing population and non-cooperative, irresponsible behaviour of tourists visiting the MHNP, he added.

Prior to the same incident, our team member was also bitten by a jackal and got vaccinated at a public hospital.

"We have started creating awareness among the hikers and tourists to avoid visiting the Trails in the late evening hours where people did not pay attention to our exhortations which also resulted into the increase in incidents of human-wildlife conflicts. The MHNP was basically for the wildlife where human interventions into their habitat would certainly have its repercussions," he noted.

To a question, he said the the vaccine to cure jackal bites wound was available at government hospitals in federal capital which costs from Rs 700 to Rs 800. He mentioned that this incident was restricted to Trail-5 and the dog shooters' team paid regular visits to control the situation.

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