Chennai: Traffic India, the wildlife investigation wing, has sounded an alert to protect India’s bear and leopard population.
Bears of north Indian states endemic to Himalayas and leopards endemic to south India are targeted by poachers, said Shekhar Kumar Niraj, former director, Traffic India.
Traffic teams had been striking time and again ending with a haul of four leopard skins and three gall bladders of Himalayan black bears and this is the fifth gall bladder seizures in the last one year and fifth leopard skin seizure in the last four months.
The general feel is that the higher altitude habitats are safe and no poaching occurs there, but there are poaching and this needs to be prevented in case of leopards and bear, he said.
If this continues leopard may go extinct before tiger in India, Mr Niraj said. The prevailing drought in south India needs to be carefully monitored, as migration of big cats is more towards water holes and this increases the density of animals in a particular place making them vulnerable for poachers, said the top IFS officer.
Further, during migration the animals are susceptible as they are new to the migrated forest. Commenting on the bear population, the official who has been studying international poaching transit routes, said poachers have finished black bear population in most parts of the south East Asia and now their focus will be more on India.
Traffic in co-ordination with state and Centre has arrested poachers targeting Himalayan bear, but more has to be done to protect these shy animals, he said.
State governments of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh are sensitized on the issue, but there is a need for more proactive roles like deployment of more foresters, chronicling of poaching cases and advanced training for those deputed on hill terrains to protect the wildlife resources, he said.
When contacted, wildlife sources in Tamil Nadu maintained that the incidence of poaching of leopard and bear in the state has been relatively lower when compared to the north Indian states, but there are good number of deaths of elephants and leopards in Tamil Nadu due to drought. Recently, a poaching case related to a tiger in Sathyamangalam was cracked and further investigations are on, sources added.
