Hyderabad: In a shocking incident a deer was killed by unidentified poachers on University of Hyderabad (UoH) premises. A steel trap was reportedly used for the purpose near the horticulture department.
A student who found the carcass on Sunday afternoon informed security officials and wildlife activists at the campus. The five-month-old deer was trapped some two days ago and the carcass was half eaten by stray dogs.
Wild life activists say there used to be around 200 deer on the campus at one time, but that number has fallen drastically to less than 50 in the last four to five years.
In 2016, around 44 deer were killed in the campus in different incidents. The anti-poaching squad, Wild Lens, which was formed in 2014, has nabbed about 70 poachers including some trespassers.
Ravi Jillapalli, founder of Wild Lens and a Life Science student at UoH said, “This has become common this season as there is less greenery and also because most of the trees have been uprooted in the campus in the past one year. This has made it easy for poachers to identify and trap the deer.”
He says the campus has a low compound wall so it is easy for poachers to enter. There is lack of security too as most of the guards are deployed only at the main entrance of the university. Strengthening the compound wall and strict vigilance in the forest are the only ways to avoid such incidents, he says.
T V Rao, chief security officer at UoH agrees that the compound wall makes it easy for poachers to enter the campus.
“This incident looks like the deer was trapped, as it happened two days ago and stray dogs had attacked and eaten the carcass by the time we observed it. As it’s a very big campus, it’s very difficult to monitor the poachers entering from different ways,” he said.
S Kukrety, chief conservator of forests, Ranga Reddy, said he had not received any information from the university yet regarding the latest incident, "but we will definitely enquire into the matter and will book a case against the poachers.''
