Poaching Incidences during the Lockdown

 

It started with a trickle. Just as the country was celebrating the collective banging of thalis amidst the news of the lockdown, a news came that a Schedule I animal, Blackbuck, was shot dead and killed in the Maksi area of Shajapur district. Then we heard about a few more incidents and the trickle increased. A Pangolin and a porcupine was found killed in the Sapera basti in Mothrowala in the state of Uttarakhand.

4 accused belonging to the Bhil tribe were held for killing Indian gazelles in Jaisalmer in the early days of April, 2020. Then almost as if to compensate for the geographical diversity, 50 kg of deer meat were seized from fire watchers working in the Bandipur Tiger reserve on 18 April, 2020. The trickle increased as the first lockdown got over and the country moved into a renewed lockdown. There was an attempt to hunt in Sulikere in Karnataka and 3 accused were held.

News started coming in from Kozhikode where 5 accused were held with wild boar meat, a jungle fowl was poached in the Silent Valley National Park region and from Karnataka where a few people were captured in a camera trap image and subsequently arrested for attempted poaching. By the time, the first lockdown was over, atleast 13 known cases of poaching or lynching were recorded from different prts of the country.

However, not much attention was given to the increase in poaching as the country was deeply involved in its fight with COVID and few, if any, other news raised interest amongst planners and policy makers.

The current situation is vague and with little news trickling in, it is only hope can sustain us through these periods of uncertainty.