More Teeth for Wildlife Wing to Check Jumbo Poaching

The New India Express , Thursday, August 21, 2014
Correspondent : Siba Mohanty
BHUBANESWAR: Odisha, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh on Wednesday decided to write to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) seeking permission for their Wildlife Wings to keep surveillance on elephant poachers and their networks to contain the rising incidence of hunting and smuggling.

Chief Wildlife Wardens and senior forest officers of the four States met at Tata Nagar on Wednesday to evolve a mechanism to control the increasing inter-State migration of elephants that has not only led to growing depradation and man-animal conflict, but also helped the poachers.

The States were unanimous that most of the poachers belong to the bordering areas who take advantage of the contiguous forested regions for carrying out their operations and return to their bases without raising attention. In the recent spate of poaching in Odisha, the Wildlife Wing arrested all the poachers most of whom turned out to be local hired goons from the bordering areas. Although the States have gathered intelligence about the ivory smugglers from the interrogation of the poachers, none has been apprehended since the Wildlife Wings have no powers to keep phone surveillance, location tracking and data monitoring.

“We have to depend on the State Police for surveillance. Though they cooperate, their priorities are different. That’s why all the four States today decided to join hands and write to the MoEF for granting necessary permission for mobile surveillance and location tracking,” said a senior officer.

The States also discussed large-scale cross-border migration of the jumbos which has emerged as a serious management problem for Odisha. There are about 4,000 elephants in the four States, but of them, about 200 have turned out to be cause of depradation and conflict. “While Odisha and West Bengal contended that close to 200 elephants emerge from Jharkhand’s Dalma Sanctuary and cross the borders, the manager of Dalma area said their number should not exceed 120-140 which means there are separate herds which also migrate during the onset of winter,” sources said.

The Chief Wildlife Wardens of the four States have decided to ask Project Elephant to constitute a study to find out the composition of the herds, the reasons for migration and mitigating measures. The States also arrived at a consensus that migration paths of the jumbos should not be blocked since such activities have led to elephants deviating from their routes, causing more conflict situations because the long-ranging find new migratory tracks through areas inhabited by people.

Sharing modern technologies to keep track of the elephants, exchange of skilled personnel and joint efforts for habitat improvement were also discussed in the meeting, which was attended by Chief Wildlife Warden of the State S S Srivastava and DFOs of several divisions of north Odisha.

 
SOURCE : http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/odisha/More-Teeth-for-Wildlife-Wing-to-Check-Jumbo-Poaching/2014/08/21/article2390573.ece
 


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