• ‘The Way of the Jackal’ co-author & Professor Sampath Seneviratne on some of the amazing facts discovered while studying SL’s only wild dog

We know it as the ‘nariya’, but, it is a very special animal, especially for Sri Lanka, which is the only country in the world that is home to a subspecies of the Eurasian golden jackal. The jackal is the Island’s sole wild dog and its third largest carnivore. However, very little is known about this magnificent creature. Probably, the most that is known is that he/she is the sly bad guy in many folk tales. 

Dispelling many a myth, the Wildlife and Nature Protection Trust recently published a book – ‘The Way of the Jackal’ – co-authored by Uthpala Jayaweera, Chandika Jayaratne, and Prof. Sampath S. Seneviratne. ‘Kaleidoscope’ discussed the reality surrounding this much maligned animal with Prof. Seneviratne just as the book was launched.

Following are excerpts from the interview:

Firstly, what was the most exciting find when doing your research?

There were exciting finds – good and bad. The good had to do with how fascinating these creatures are – they are basically wolves. We have information to believe that they are perhaps genetically wolves as well, but, we know that they are primitive wolves. They display features that wolves show. Jackals are pack hunters and they are highly social. Babies of the previous litter help their parents look after the next round of babies. They have a very tight family unit. You don’t see this in the big cats, who are charismatic but don’t have human-like bonds. A jackal pup would die to save a younger pup and a father would die to save his family. That is the most amazing feature that we saw in the field. The negative aspect is that the jackal is disappearing. It is shocking that an animal which eats human food and has a diet that is very close to a human diet is disappearing at an alarming rate. We don’t know why. 

How did you get into this project and bring in your co-authors?

The co-authors were once my students and then became friends. Jayaratne first approached me with a study about the rusty spotted cat – which is the world’s smallest cat – and I asked him if he would be ready to join me in studying the jackal, the reason being that nobody has ever studied the Sri Lankan jackal and it is the only wild dog in Sri Lanka. Nowhere else is the jackal isolated like it is here in Sri Lanka as in other places, the jackal lives alongside wolves and foxes, but, on this Island, the jackal is isolated. Jayaratne agreed and started working on some aspects. Then, Jayaweera came in to work on a project on bats. I asked her if she wanted to study jackals and she joined in enthusiastically. That is how this came to be.

‘The Way of the Jackal’ is the untold story of Sri Lanka’s wild dog. Why has it gone untold for so long?

It took us a long time. It took one full year for Jayaweera to do her work. We have done a systematic island survey of the population and interviewed lots of people – farmers, forest officers, veterinarians, etc., from various social strata. The good thing is that everyone knows who the ‘nariya’ is, so there is no confusion. It also took a long time to find specimens to do autopsies on. It took even more time to put all of our information into a book. We wanted to make a monograph that includes science, but is not chock-full of technical jargon. Our aim was to make it a book that people will read and enjoy, so we added art, literature, poetry, and rural stories to the book. But, why did it take so long for Sri Lanka to study the jackal? The simple answer is that nobody paid attention. 

What makes the jackal so iconic?

The jackal is iconic because it is one of the closest relatives to the dog. This world has a lot of dog lovers and cat lovers, but, the cat has family in the big wild, cats like the lion and the tiger who are related to the domestic cat and considered charismatic and very glorified. If you look at the standard for the most charismatic species on the planet, the tiger tops the list. Humans rank the tiger as the most charismatic. Then come the panda, the lion, the elephant, and the leopard. On this list, the top 10 most charismatic species are mammals, most of them carnivores. The penguin is also on the list and the only featured bird. The grey wolf is also in the top 10 and a close relative of the jackal. So, in context, we have a very close relative of one of the most charismatic animals on the planet living on our Island. Our jackal was once considered an endemic species and is now considered an endemic subspecies and Sri Lanka has the only sub-species in the world. The jackal is the only dog in the forest in Sri Lanka. I think that these are reasons enough.

What is your take on the much maligned ‘nariya’ in Sri Lanka’s folk tales? What misconceptions would you like to perhaps dispel?

The leopard or the tiger never gets such bad public relations. In fact, the lion can do no wrong. He is considered the king of the jungle. The name ‘jackal’ does not have an awe inspiring ring to it plus the bad publicity that the fox gets in Europe is translated to the jackal here because we have no foxes. So, the jackal is called cunning, artful, messy, dishonest, and disloyal, but, in reality, it is like your dog at home. If you are a dog lover, you believe that dogs are sweet, caring, loyal, and loving, but, for someone who doesn't like dogs, they would believe that they are cunning and fierce. The same goes for the jackal. It is a misnomer. Kumaratunga Munidasa’s ‘Magul Kaema’ and ‘Nari Baena’ are all about the cunning ‘nariya’ and there are so many more folk tales that utilise this characterisation. The ‘nariya’ is the symbol of cunning in our literature. Does it deserve that? I definitely do not think so. Other animals also have cunning because they need to survive in the jungle.

What role can the jackal play in Sri Lanka’s wildlife tourism sector?

The jackal plays three very important roles in our society: it has massive potential as a wildlife tourism attraction, its vitality in our agricultural system, and being a messenger of the impacts of climate change due to their disappearance. The jackal is one of the missing links in our agricultural system. The peacock has become a menace because the jackal has been removed from the system. The jackal has a huge role to build back our system and to bring the wilderness back to what it was, so that our farmers can do their jobs without much of a problem. When it comes to tourism: the jackal’s big brother – the wolf – adds United States (US) Dollars 171,000 to the US’ wildlife tourism industry. The US has a variety of wild dogs and foxes. In Africa, the African wild dog is known as one of the best hunters. Even with all of the big cats who live in Africa, the wild dog takes the top hunter spot. In Australia, the dingo is the wild dog with so many stories about its prowess. In Sri Lanka, we have just one species of wild dog and it is the country’s third largest carnivore. We are a wildlife destination to the rest of the world, but nobody even talks about the jackal. We have missed such a big opportunity to promote the jackal to wildlife tourists. The jackal is not as rare as a leopard and so it is an easy, low cost alternative.

What is special about what you have put together in this book?

In this book, we try to rebrand the jackal. We had a plan to rename it the dwarf wolf, but, we want to do more science to prove that the jackal is a wolf before we do this. We also wanted to showcase that the jackal is vital for our agricultural system and that it is a hugely missed potential for wildlife tourism. It is such a fascinating species of animal. We named the book ‘The Way of the Jackal’ after the famous film titled ‘The Day of the Jackal’.

What would you like people to know about the jackal?

See the wolf in them. If you are a dog lover, you can think about what your dog may have to do to survive if it was in the wild without any human care. It has to outsmart the leopard and the elephant, it has to be artful in hunting, and it has to get through various weather conditions. The jackal is a wolf, so the intelligence, the lordship, and the awe inspiring fear that the wolf brings to the table is also within the jackal. The howl of the jackal is iconic to anyone who has spent time in the Sri Lankan wilderness. This howl and therefore this animal, is disappearing fast. It is comparable to how this country’s old ways and traditions of the countryside are disappearing. If you love your dog, why do you not love its cousin? The jackal is as amazing as your dog. The jackal deserves good public relations and could do a lot to turn the tide for this country economically, via agriculture and wildlife tourism. With this book, we hope to do that. It has very simple language and we wanted to balance the science with the aesthetic. 

(The writer is the host, director, and co-producer of the weekly digital programme ‘Kaleidoscope with Savithri Rodrigo’ which can be viewed on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. She has over three decades of experience in print, electronic, and social media)