Rivals or partners?: wolf and hyena share the same bowl in south western Bengal

Much of the suitable habitat lies within human-modified lands and the species use this landscape for movement among suitable habitat patches, finds ZSI study

The Indian Grey Wolf and Striped Hyena known to be rival species are showing tolerant behaviour towards each other, in terms of the patches they occupy to utilise the livestock resource as prey in semi-arid regions of West Bengal, a recent study by scientists of Zoological Survey of India and the West Bengal Forest Department has pointed out. The details of the study have been published in a paper titled, ‘Indian Grey Wolf and Striped Hyena sharing from the same bowl: High niche overlap between top predators in a human-dominated landscape’ published in international science journal Global Ecology and Conservation. “We found that both the species, which are generally known rivals showing tolerance towards each other, which is a strong evidence of land sharing among the species in the landscape. We also found significant level of biological connectivity between the overlapping suitable habitat patches of both the species,” said Dr. Lalit Kumar Sharma, lead author and head of the wildlife section of ZSI.