Counting India’s wolves, one howl at a time

“Some have a broken leg, some a broken tail.” That’s how Mihir Godbole says he identifies wolves in Saswad, just 31 kms away from the bustling city of Pune. A filmmaker and conservationist, he is founder of the The Grassland Trust and has been working with wolves in the outskirts of Pune for over a decade. In this time he has deeply studied the wolves and says he can identify 62 individuals by their unique characteristics.

As for identifying the rest of the unknown number of wolves roaming the grasslands it can, according to Sougata Sadhukhan, be “very tricky to do so by their coats alone.” Wolves can also be identified by their howls, according to Sadhukhan, who is a PhD student at the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and co-authored a study last year on the potential of identifying Indian wolves by their howls as a non-invasive survey method.