India, July 2 -- As many as three recent sightings of rare wild animals across vastly different ecosystems of Maharashtra have brought both excitement and unease to the wildlife conservation community.

While the sightings of a melanistic (dark pigmentation) Indian wild dog (Dhole) near the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve, a black Indian jackal in Baramati's grasslands, and a leucistic (reduced pigmentation/white) leopard cub in Ratnagiri's forests are being hailed as rare genetic phenomena, experts warn that these anomalies could point to deeper maladies of ecological stress, shrinking gene pools and hybridisation risks in India's shape-shifting wild zones.

The most striking of these sightings is that of a black Dhole or Indian wild dog, recorde...