Feral Dog Hunting Bar-headed Goose, Magadi, Karnataka

In December 2018, I had been to Magadi Kere Conservation Reserve (declared in 2015), popularly known as Magadi Bird Sanctuary in Gadag District of North Karnataka. Several migratory birds make this lake their home during winter. Of these winter visitors is one of the world’s highest flying birds, the Bar-headed Goose, migrating from Mongolia. Over the years, bird lovers have reported many ringed birds here, contributing to the data about their migration. The Karnataka Forest Department has also taken measures to reduce / end poaching in this area.

However, it was a disturbing sight to see a feral dog feeding on a bar-headed goose that it had hunted down, adding to the list of species that are at peril because of feral dogs.

As Conservation India has highlighted repeatedly in the past domestic / feral dogs pose a huge threat to wildlife populations in human-populated landscapes where they are the most abundant terrestrial carnivore, with a global population close to a billion.

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