'Operation Bhediya': Another wolf captured, uncertainty over number on prowl in Bahraich
Bahraich(UP) (PTI): A forest department team of Uttar Pradesh captured on Thursday a fully grown male wolf under its 'Operation Bhediya' launched to capture a pack of wolves on the prowl in Mehsi tehsil of Bahraich district that has so far killed seven people.
The department has so far captured four wolves.
Barabanki Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Akashdeep Badhawan, the in-charge of 'Operation Bhediya', told PTI that a male wolf was trapped in one of the cages set up near Sisayya Chudamani village in the morning.
The animal caught is a fully grown male, he said.
Six children and a woman have been killed by the animals in the last month and a half in Bahraich with the latest attack taking place in a village on the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday.
Drone cameras and thermal drone mapping techniques are being used by the forest department to catch the wolves. Permission to tranquillise the animals has been granted by the chief wildlife warden, according to an official statement.
As per the forest department, there is uncertainty about the total number of wolves in the area, officials said.
Principal Chief Forest Conservator (Wildlife) Sanjay Srivastava on Wednesday said 16 teams were working to capture the wolves, and 12 district-level officers are also stationed here.
Additional Principal Chief Forest Conservator Renu Singh will remain on-site until the remaining wolves are captured, he added.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
