Times of India , Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Correspondent : Staff Reporter

ALLAHABAD: While the alleged hunting of endangered specie of black bug by Bollywood star Salman Khan received national attention and hit headlines, the regular poaching of the specie in Chandpur Khamariya area under Khiri police station in Allahabad district has drastically reduced the number of black bucks in the absence of any effort to protect them by the state government and the forest department. The number of black bucks living in the jungle spread over 150 acres of forest land in Meja circle has drastically reduced from 400 to 200 in just one and half years. Sources from the village and forest department say that the black bucks are found only in this area of the district and its surroundings, but despite this, the state government and forest authorities have not been talking interest in protecting them. In the absence of any fencing, water facility and other facilities, black bucks have been subject to open poaching by locals and smugglers. Those who survived face death in summer in the absence of a water pond in the jungle. Going to the river for water means falling prey to hunters, say sources. It was also reported that perceiving a threat to their lives, these black bucks have been migrating to neighbouring districts of Madhya Pradesh. The height of official apathy could be gauged from the fact that local MP Reoti Raman Singh had once got a proposal approved by the state government, but somewhere down the line the entire project was bogged down by administrative hassles. Girish Chandra Pandey alleges that a proposal to protect and preserve them was approved by the then state government and at that time the number of black bucks was around 350 to 400, but the figure gradually reduced to only 200. Although a senior officer in the forest department accepts that the number of the specie has reduced drastically, he refuses to provide any official record of the killing.

SOURCE : Times of India, Tuesday, 18 December 2007