Guwahati, Sept. 10 -- Kasturi Das

Early this year, when 40-year-old Taum Tamut went looking for his mithuns (Bos frontalis) in the forest surrounding his village Jomlo Mobuk in Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh, he came across a grim sight. One of his mithunslay dead, its carcass bearing the unmistakable marks of a dhole (Cuon alpinus)attack.

Taum, a member of the Adi tribe and a father of three young children, has around 50 mithuns and earns his livelihood by selling vegetables, broomsticks, and occasionally a mithun or two. "The dholes don't spare the mithun calves. Our calves have been eaten by the dholes. There are so many of them here," says a distraught Taum.

Hundreds of kilometres away in Doimukh, 54-year-old Nabum Tania from ...