Overenthusiastic and lax in turn, media
and NGOs often end up fueling the wildlife trade
“What would be the price, sir?”
Sargam Singh Rasaily, an IFS officer in
Uttarakhand, briefly scowled as he checked a fresh pelt that his enforcement
team had just seized from a trader when villagers crowded in. After minutes of
excited speculation, one of them had gathered courage to address a forest
staff.
Before the forester could hazard a
guess, the officer turned around. “Seven years,” he said. Confused, the
villagers hesitantly repeated their question: “No, sir. We were asking what
price such a skin…”
“I told you. It fetches seven years.
Rigorous,” answered Rasaily, going on to explain the punishment stipulated for
poaching under the Wildlife Protection Act.
The officer recounted the story a
couple of years ago in Dehradun at a mid-career training session where I was
showing a short film on poaching. Rasaily was unhappy that my film revealed the
market price of tiger skin and bone which might lure people to poaching. We had
a brief debate. I recalled that exchange when the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau
imposed a ban this month on assigning monetary value to seized wildlife
articles.
Only traditional hunting tribes have
the skill required to kill animals in all terrains under hostile conditions. A
villager cannot acquire such talent overnight even if he gets excited on learning
how much a dead tiger is worth. But he can still target wildlife in and around
his village. Shooting a wandering rhino, for example, does not take any jungle
skill but safe and timely disposal of the huge carcass becomes a challenge.
Leopards are more convenient targets and fetch a high price as tiger
substitute. Then there are smaller catches ranging from owls to butterflies.
At least thrice in the past two years,
it turned out that people with no history of involvement in wildlife crime had
decided to give it a try after reading or watching in the media how lucrative
the trade was. A couple of them were graduates. One taught boxing; another was
a driver. None of them had to enter any forest to poison or trap the leopards
they killed.
Understandably, the anti-poaching NGOs
have their hands full. But few have the intelligence network or skills of investigation
required to bust poaching rackets. Instead, they send staff to forested areas
as decoy customers, ready to pay a good price. This is harmless strategy as
long as they look for an existing stock of wildlife goods. But it crosses the
line when they offer money to anyone willing to make a kill.
It is indeed a matter of fine judgement
for an NGO when the potential trader seeks time to supply a consignment. It is
usual for poachers to take a few days for moving stock from remote locations of
safekeeping. But that time may as well be utilised in making fresh kills. While
it is a debatable moral question if another big cat is too big a price for
nabbing a prolific poacher, it is certainly inexcusable when random fishing
with monetary baits tempts poor villagers with no history of poaching to the
crime.
Wary that their lax protection regimes
would get exposed, forest officials in the past have accused even the most
experienced NGO hands of “inciting villagers to poach”. At the same time, the shoddy
handling of seizures poses serious questions.
The bones of a big cat are worth up to ten
times its pelt. Seizure data claims that at least 466 leopards and 66 tigers
have been poached since 2010. That would amount to 532 pelts and, at the very
least, 4000 kg of bones. Yet, seizures almost always throw up only skins. More
inexplicably, very few skin seizures, if any, subsequently lead to recovery of
bones.
Since poachers almost always get bails,
they go back or get their associates to recover the buried bones for the international market. While the strike rate of NGOs improves,
the trade continues to flourishes.
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