Three Pardhis From Katni Held In Nagpur For Tiger Poaching

BHOPAL: A section of Pardhis from Madhya Pradesh have yet proved to be the biggest threat to wild life; particularly the big cat population in India. Very recently they are reported to have smuggled half a dozen tiger hides to an international syndicate from their base in Katni district. And all this while wild life officials, busy pitching for lions from Gir in Gujarat to the state, appeared blissfully ignorant.

The poaching racket headquartered at Katni was busted on Sunday with the arrest of three Pardhis by a crime branch team of Maharashtra police from Nagpur. The arrests were made from a village in Nagpur on specific inputs from an organisation working for wildlife.

The accused Chika alias Krishna, Badlu alias Mangru and Shiri – all residents of Katni’s Sagoni village -have confessed to selling five tiger hides so far to a Haryana-based trader. The deal was worth Rs 20 lakh for three tiger hides, said sources.

Poachers Snare

One of the tiger, they said, was poached from Mandla district. However, no tiger hides have been confiscated so far.

Now, the forest officials in four states – Maharashtra, Karnataka, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh – are on the lookout for 30 more Pardhis, from two villages (Sagoni and Billhari) in Katni district. Pardhi families from Katni disappeared from these two villages a day before the trio were arrested, said sources adding that the information got leaked.

Most of the accused on run are close relatives of the 37 Pardhis arrested from Katni for poaching lions from Gir national park in Gujarat in 2007. Teams have been dispatched to different locations tracking cell phones.

According to forest officials, the Maharashtra police had placed several Pardhis of Katni on surveillance besides intercepting their calls while the deal was being made. The arrest was made only after the skins were sold.

The 30-member gang got Rs 35,000 each from the first deal, said sources. They kept on changing their locations from one place to the other while striking the deal. Reportedly, the police could confiscate a few bones from them, which has been sent for forensic examination for identification of the species.

News Link:-http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/Three-Pardhis-from-Katni-held-in-Nagpur-for-tiger-poaching/articleshow/20548682.cms?intenttarget=no

Increasing Cases Of Leopard-Human Conflicts In Western Uttar Pradesh

NOIDA: The rescue of a sub-adult male leopard in a village near Meerut by a team of environmentalists has once again thrown up questions about leopard-human conflict in western Uttar Pradesh.

The districts of western UP are synonymous with sugarcane plantations and the adaptable big cats have utilised these tall crops as habitat where they live and breed. Combined with the increasing pressure on forest habitat in Uttar Pradesh, the once rich leopard population in the state is under constant threat.

The sugarcane plantations in the state are ideal habitat for leopards as they provide cover that allows them to remain unseen. Studies have shown that in many cases farmers and leopards use the same path at approximately the same time without the leopard being detected.

There has however been a gloomy increase in the number of incidents in human-leopard conflict in the state, many of them leading to the leopard being killed. In 2011, a leopard that was found in the sugarcane fields in Bahadurpur area of Ghaziabad and was eventually killed by them before environmentalists could intervene. 

As per a report by the Union ministry of environment report In Uttar Pradesh, as many as 22 persons were killed in wild attacks in 2010-11. Meanwhile, the state’s green cover has been staggering for years, despite all the plantation efforts by forest department. The green cover, in the last five years has gone down from 9.26% to 9.01%. In UP, moderately dense forest (which has 40-70% canopy formation) has gone down from 4,563 sq km to 4,559 sq km.

As per experts, this combined with the massive increase in population in the state has directly led to such cases of conflict. As per guidelines released by MoEFF in 2011 related to dealing with leopard-human conflict – the big cats are not usually inclined to attack people, on the contrary, they avoid people.

In a study, wildlife biologist Vidya Athreya and social scientist Sunetro Ghosal found that in the absence of their usual prey, such leopards that exist on the fringes of rural India – especially in sugarcane plantations – survive on a diet of feral dogs, pigs and livestock. The few wild animals they feed on are mongoose, civet cats and rodents.

While a number of farmers in the area feel proud that the leopard lives alongside them, others aren’t so tolerant. “We are forced live alongside these government-owned predators. They thrive in our farms and harm our livestock, yet we can’t attack and kill them,” said Umar Yadav, a farmer in Bahadurpur. “But some do, in the most horrific mob attacks imaginable”

Department officials require crisis and people management training in order to perform their jobs better. Compensation payments should be made less tedious and bureaucratic; it should be linked to effective protection, so that those who take better care of their livestock are rewarded, and support provided to those who lack the resources to adequately protect their animals,” said an environmentalist.

News Link:-http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/noida/Increasing-cases-of-leopard-human-conflicts-in-western-Uttar-Pradesh/articleshow/18152181.cms?