The director of Deir Atiyah sub-district, Major Khalaf al-Daher, denied the authenticity of what was being circulated on social media and “WhatsApp” in the Qalamoun area, including messages and pictures of hyenas and wolves that were said to have been seen roaming on the outskirts of Deir Atiyah city last week.
Al-Daher said in a statement to “Hashtag” that the police of the district did not report about these photos and messages, nor about any incident of attacking the sheep pens.
He stressed that “what is being transmitted among social circles is just unconfirmed talk.”
And “scary” pictures of hyenas and wolves were circulated among the people of the Qalamoun region through mobile phone media messages, and reached all areas of Western Qalamoun, which raised fears and anxiety among the people of the region, and some of them expressed fear of going out to the outskirts of this or that city, especially at night times. .
The attached messages contained an explanation confirming that the pictures of hyenas and wolves come from the eastern mountain of the city, which in recent years has turned into a habitat for predatory wild animals such as wolves and hyenas.
For his part, the forensic doctor in the Qalamoun region, Muhammad Zarzour, said that the region’s hospitals did not receive any cases of predation from wolves that are being talked about recently.
Some residents of Deir Atiyah reported that they saw wolves, as Nassib al-Toum (a resident of Deir Atiyah) said that he saw them near the treatment plant in the city.
He added that he had heard before that “some hyenas and wolves started sneaking into the city under cover of darkness,” but he did not believe at that time until he and his companion saw it with the naked eye, and that the people of the area knew about it, and transmitted its news.
While the farmer, Muhammad Salim Assi, ruled out this information and the authenticity of the messages. He, who lives on the outskirts of the city, said: “I looked at the pictures and it is certain that they are fabricated, because wolves do not attack humans unless they are alone.”
He added to the “hashtag” that wolves are concentrated in the eastern mountain region, and that “the wave of deliberate killing of them led to their near extinction, and this is a dangerous indicator of environmental imbalance.”
He explained that one of the characteristics of wolves is that they travel long distances at night, in addition to their roaming in groups of up to 4 wolves, indicating that they hide during the day in the caves of the “eastern mountains” of Qalamoun.
He mentioned several situations that show that wolves do not attack humans unless they attack them.
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