Habitat loss stokes rabid jackal attacks in Bangladesh

Few in the Jahan family's remote Bangladeshi village had seen a jackal up close before the morning one stalked Musqan through the paddy fields, pounced on her, and maimed the four-year-old for life.

Violent and unprovoked attacks by rabid canines are rising around the South Asian nation due to rampant deforestation and habitat loss -- a trend experts say has been worsened by climate change.

Musqan is still recovering from the horrific injuries she sustained in the mauling last month by the rabid jackal. While she is rabies-free thanks to prompt treatment, her face is disfigured by bite wounds and one of her eyes remains swollen shut.

"It happened in broad daylight," her aunt Ishrat Jahan told AFP.

"A jackal pushed her to the ground and blindly bit her. Other villagers later killed it, but they are still traumatised by what happened."

Golden jackals like the one that maimed Musqan are slender, wolf-like creatures found across Bangladesh, about the same size as a greyhound but lighter in weight.

What made the attack on Musqan unusual was its timing -- she was bitten in the daytime, but golden jackals are a nocturnal species.

Animal researcher Zoheb Mahmud of Independent University in Dhaka told AFP that his studies of golden jackals over eight years showed that the "gradual erosion of habitats" had altered their behaviour.

"I found the once-shy creatures had begun staring at us," he said. "They are supposed to come out in the evening or at night, but we saw them during the day."

Urbanisation and logging have led to major human encroachment on the habitats where much of Bangladesh's jackal population resides.

According to monitoring group Global Forest Watch, Bangladesh last year lost 17,800 hectares (44,000 acres) of forest cover -- an area roughly three times the size of Manhattan.

Mahmud warned that jackal attacks on humans "would not stop" if the habitat loss continued.

Bangladesh is one the countries ranked most vulnerable to climate change, and there are signs that more extreme weather is making attacks more likely.

The country saw widespread flooding in September that displaced millions of people in the worst-hit areas for the second year running, with floodwaters coursing through forests and driving out their canine inhabitants.

"Due to the flood, the jackals lost their dwellings and food," jackal bite victim Obaidul Islam told AFP from Nilphamari in the country's north.

"So they came and bit more than a dozen people in our village."

Rakibul Hasan Mukul, executive director of civil society wildlife group Arannayk, told AFP that climate change was driving more extreme and frequent flooding in Bangladesh.

He said changes to the weather were also eroding farmlands, displacing their human inhabitants and prompting them to cut down more forests.

"The loss of land has also resulted in increased conflicts between humans and wildlife," he added.

"People are cutting bushes around wetlands and their homesteads for farming. As a result, small mammals are in crisis, losing their habitats."