Wildlife News from India

DHAKA: A herd of wild elephants on Friday trampled to death four members of a family in remote southeastern hills prompting over 100 families in the area to flee for safety, officials said.

Four members of a farmer family, including two minors, were killed while asleep at their thatched house when a herd of around eight elephants strayed into their remote village at Lama area of Bandarban hill district.

The herd also levelled four households and several rural shops. More than hundred families in the neighbourhood fled their homes as the elephants had killed another person at the same village just a week ago, a police official said.

More news at Times of India

KOLKATA: Two Czech nationals, held for allegedly smuggling specimens of beetles and moths from the northern range of the Singalila National Park in Darjeeling district on June 22, were remanded to judicial custody by a local court at a special session on Wednesday after their pleas for bail were rejected for the second time.

The insects were found in the possession of the two men, Peter Svacha and Emil Kucera — both in their Fifties — when forest officials visited them in a local hotel after being tipped off by the staff of the national park.

More news at The Hindu

NEW DELHI: The dirty double-storey building with a couple of kids playing inside was hardly any different from other homes in Gurgaon’s Suratnagar area. But when Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) officials, with Gurgaon cops in tow, walked into one of the rooms on the first floor and opened a polythene bag kept there, they immediately knew the informer was on the ball. The bag contained 15 kg of tiger bones.

“Tiger bones and body parts — penis, testicles, canines — all highly valued in the illegal international market, were part of the haul. The tiger’s fat was also kept in a bottle. It was a fresh kill,” says B S Gurum, assistant director, WCCB, who took part in the Monday evening raid. Nobody was arrested.

More news at Times of india

CJ: Basudev Mahapatra ,  13 hours ago   Views:101 Comments:1

RECENTLY, A man in Orissa was arrested for keeping a bear in his house as confining a wild animal in a domestic set up is a violation of India’s Wildlife Protection Act. And this happened only when a local media carried the story. Was the police unaware of the incident before the story came on TV channel? Even after knowing about the fact, did they properly investigate why and how the man brought the bear to his house and opted to keep it like a pet animal? It was only to avoid further stories by the media that police did nab the man and took him into custody because the tribals of Kandhamal keep wild animals like boars in large numbers in their houses like pet animals. And the irony is that even after knowing everything, neither the forest department nor the district police have taken any action to stop this illegal practice.

More news at merinews.com

The 9^th Edition of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) -India’s Directory, titled “Environmental NGOs in India - 2008” has been released. This comprehensive information-bank takes into account NGOs in all the States and Union territories working towards environmental protection, conservation and awareness. It provides vital information about the groups engaged in the cultivation and nurturing of interest in environmental protection and the conservation of nature & natural resources.

http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=40058

JAIPUR: Is the male tiger perhaps feeling a little lonely at Sariska? True, it has not lost its appetite; on Sunday, it feasted on a young deer. It has also braved the rain and not yet shown much signs of homesickness. But how long before it gets the blues and yearns for company?

More news

While the Greater adjutant stork (Leptoptilos dubius) population of the world is seeing a general decline, a recently discovered population in Bihar has been growing steadily, says Arvind Mishra, member of the State Wildlife Board, Government of Bihar.

“The population of Greater adjutant storks in Bhagalpur district has increased almost two folds as compared to last year, to at least 157 individuals if not more,” said Mishra, who along with the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) is working to conserve the species in the state.

Mishra, an executive committee member of the Mandar Nature Club in Bhagalpur, discovered the breeding population of the storks along the Kosi and Ganga flood plains in the winter of 2006. Prior to this, they were known only from Cambodia and the north-eastern Indian state of Assam, with the worldwide count of less than 800 individuals.

More news

ORISSA WITH its prosperous biodiversity and diverse ecosystem makes a unique place, where biodiversity has always been an integral part of the socio-cultural aspect of the local people. But alarmingly in recent days, its amazing wildlife and unique ecosystem is battling the warm embrace of rapid climate change, the toxic taste of accumulating chemical pollution, and mixed blessing of escalating development of its natural resources. Never before have wild animals and habitat faced the kind of threat they face today and just as dangerous is the threat to the survival of species from habitat destruction. Ecological destruction due to lopsided development projects and organised poaching has threatened the very existence of the species. The current paradigm of development has resulted not only in the depletion of natural resources of the state, but also threatens to wipe out irreplaceable ecosystems.

More news at Merinews.com

Heartbreak over cub confiscation

BHUBANESWAR, India: A tribal man in India who rescued an abandoned bear cub to help his daughter overcome her mother’s death has fallen foul of forest officials.

They confiscated the animal arguing that its capture was in contravention of wildlife laws.

As a result, Ramesh Munda, 35, was briefly jailed and the bear was sent to a zoo where some reports say it has refused to eat.

His daughter is now distraught over the loss of a “much-loved” family friend.

Munda, who is also known as Ram Singh, rescued Rani almost two years ago from the dense forest of Keonjhar in the eastern state of Orissa.

More news at Gulf Daily News

June 29th, 2008 - 12:56 pm ICT by IANS -

By Sanjeeb Baruah
Guwahati, June 29 (IANS) India’s one-horned rhinoceros faces an uncertain future in the country’s northeast, its main home, because of unending poaching and shrinking of the habitat so vital for the animal’s survival. Last year alone, poachers killed at least 20 rhinoceroses in and around Assam’s sprawling Kaziranga national park. This year, the toll has already reached seven, officials said.

The 430-sq km park, with around 1,800 rhinoceroses, has the world’s largest population of this primitive mammal. Two other reserves in Assam, Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary and Orang National Park, have around 150 rhinoceroses.

Three rhinoceroses were killed in Orang this year.

Countrywide, the rhino population could be just over 2,200, including in West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, said Prabal Sarkar of the NGO Wildlife Trust of India (WTI).

At the turn of the sanctuary, the rhino roamed almost all over the Gangetic plain. Its numbers fell sharply over the decades because of depleted grassland habitat and frequent hunting — to feed the illegal rhino horn trade.

Experts say these animals are killed for its horn, which is used as aphrodisiac by some tribes in the northeast and in some Asian countries.

More news at ThaIndian.com

NEW YORK, New York, December 20, 2007 (ENS) - Conservationists estimate that today 5,000 tigers remain in the wild, down from 100,000 tigers that inhabited Asia alone just 150 years ago. Now, a new study of the potential for tigers to survive in Thailand has hope soaring that the endangered big cats may not be headed for extinction.Scientists at the New York based Wildlife Conservation Society, working with a scientific team in Thailand Department of National Park, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation, have been studying Thailand’s Western Forest Complex - a 18,000 square kilometer network of parks and wildlife reserves.

They learned that this area can potentially support some 2,000 tigers, which would make it one of the world’s tiger strongholds.

Environment News Service 

Chandigarh, Dec 21 - The sighting of rare freshwater dolphins in the Harike wetland in north Punjab has enthused wildlife experts and nature lovers who now want to study their presence there.Hitherto known to survive only in the Indus river basin, especially in Pakistan, the spotting of the freshwater dolphins by a forest officer of the Punjab forest and wildlife department has generated a lot of interest among wildlife and nature lovers.

Earthtimes 

ScienceDaily (Dec. 21, 2007) — More than one thousand wild elephants have been given a right of passage today, with the safeguarding of a wildlife corridor that links two reserves in Karnataka, Southern India. Elephant corridors are narrow strips of land that allow elephants to move from one habitat patch to another. There are 88 identified elephant corridors in India. The country is home to an estimated 25,000 wild elephants.

Science Daily 

Indian police say they have apprehended two men caught on videotape shooting flamingos near Mumbai. VOA correspondent Steve Herman reports from New Delhi that flamingo meat is selling cheaper than chicken in Mumbai markets.

A flock of flamingos walk in a pond on outskirts of Ahmadabad, India, 27 June 2007

Birdwatchers had gone to the marshy mudflats near the port of Mumbai to videotape flamingos migrating for the winter.  They were horrified when they saw two men armed with an air gun bringing down the birds.

Voice of America

UCKNOW: Is Corbett going the Gir way? A mutilated tiger body found near Corbett proves that infighting in and around the park is increasing. And, if the recent rise in infighting and death due to the same is an indication to go by, relocation of tigers from Corbett could be a choice coming up in near future.

Corbett is touted as one of the best tiger reserves with good number of tigers present there. The density of tigers is pretty high in the park. But, as has been reported in the recent past, the cases of infighting are increasing in and around the area.

The latest incident is of Wednesday, when a torn and mutilated body of a tiger was found in Raninangal block of Bijnore forest division, near Corbett national park. The death, said the forest officials from the area, was because of infighting between the two tigers.

Times of India

The Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) provided intelligence and assisted in a huge wildlife enforcement operation in northern Karnataka in the early hours of this morning. Sixty-five skins were seized – one tiger skin, 21 leopard skins and 43 otter skins. A well known wildlife trader called Prabhakar was arrested.

http://www.quamiekta.com/englishnews/p.php?q=1132

There is no ‘sacrifice’ involved, no solemn “I must give up all pleasures to save the world” resolve. This is the predominant view of the Earth Heroes, discovered over the past eight years for the Sanctuary-ABN AMRO Wildlife Awards. Apart from the surprise at being honoured, these wildlife defenders also conveyed courage and humility – that are the hallmark of the truly successful.

On December 7, 2007 over 1,000 people gathered at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, in Mumbai to meet some of India’s most valuable sons and daughters who arrived from the four corners of the country. This year, 11 Earth Heroes were honoured, whose contribution to the security of India is all the more vital now that the connection between climate change and deforestation is better understood. Here are some of these people.

Deccan Herald

In one of the biggest wildlife cases this decade, the Special Task Force of the Uttar Pradesh Police with the assistance of the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) seized three tiger skins and three tiger skeletons in Allahabad on Tuesday, 4th December 2007.

Sixteen people were arrested, including wildlife trader Shabeer Hasan Qureshi who is an accused in at least four major wildlife cases.  In particular, Qureshi is the prime accused in the January 2000 case in Khaga, UP, when four tiger skins, 70 leopard skins and a huge haul of other wildlife products were seized. Three other traders were arrested along with two tiger poachers and ten women couriers who belong to the Baheliya community.

The case is a landmark for wildlife enforcement as it includes the arrest of the three key elements of the killing of wild tigers: buyers, poachers and couriers.

“This is a major breakthrough in the fight against wildlife crime in India”, said Belinda Wright, Executive Director of WPSI. “Qureshi is the biggest buyer of tiger products in India today. We are delighted with this case and have nothing but praise for the way in which it was handled by the Special Task Force of the Uttar Pradesh Police. They succeeded by using intelligence-led enforcement which is the only way to effectively tackle this growing menace”, she added. The operation was led by Superintendent of Police, STF, Mr Amitabh Yash, and STF’s Deputy Superintendent of Police, Mr Aravind Chaturvedi.

http://www.quamiekta.com/englishnews/p.php?q=1133

Hyderabad, December 14: The WWF-India, working for nature conservation, is organising nature camps to Papikonda Wildlife Sanctuary and the Maredumilli reserve forest to sensitise nature lovers and create awareness about the need to protect the rich, diverse landscape.The nature camp to Papikonda in East Godavari will commence from December 24 to 25 while the second overnight camp to Maredumilli, a tribal town located close to Papikonda sanctuary will be from December 29 to 30, according to a release from Farida Tampal, State Director, Andhra Pradesh State Office, WWF-India.

Details can be had from WWF Office, Ph.No.23534151 or 23533998. Email: apso@wwfindia.net on or before December 20. The camp is open to all.

An endangered sloth bear cub of only two or three weeks old has been rescued from a poacher in India, thanks to intelligence supplied by IAR’s partners Wildlife SOS (WSOS). A joint undercover operation conducted by the Forest and Police Departments in the State of Orissa and the Indian charity culminated in the rescue of the little cub whose eyes were still closed. It had clearly been stolen from its mother who may well have been killed while trying to protect it.

In the run-up to the raid informers from Wildlife SOS’s Intelligence Unit kept the wildlife smugglers under surveillance and kept watch on the wildlife trading routes near the forested areas of Orissa which form the sloth bears’ natural range.

International Animal Rescue

Fri 14 December 2007 13:30 UK — Asia,Birds

Poor infrastructure and a lack of funding means that Indian wildlife officers are unable to prevent poaching on the wetlands near the city of Mumbai.

Around 300 varieties of birds inhabit the coastal wetlands and mudflats in Mumbai, Thane and Raigad, but the region is unprotected by officials, the Times of India reported.

A senior state wildlife official, who wished to remain unnamed, explained to the paper that his department could technically book any person who illegally shoots a wild animal even if the area does not come under the jurisdiction of a forest territory.

International Animal Rescue news

At least 21 endangered crocodile-like gharials have been found dead over the past three days in a river in northern India, wildlife officials say. The reptiles died in the Chambal River, and one official said that cirrhosis of the liver was the cause of the deaths. Tests are now being carried out on the water for the presence of any liver-damaging toxins. The gharial, with its long, narrow snout adapted for eating small fish, is critically endangered in South Asia.

BBC News

BHUBANESWAR, Dec. 13: The Wildlife Society of Orissa (WSO) has alleged that regulatory agencies have relaxed rules to clear Posco steel plant’s captive port project.
The World Bank is lobbying for the project as the US pension funds and corporate investors have a huge stake in Posco, Mr Biswajit Mohanty, secretary of WSO, said.
The speed at which clearances have been accorded and preferential treatment given to the company, has raised everyone’s eyebrows even within the concerned departments, Mr Mohanty noted.
Statesman News

NEW DELHI (AP) - Police arrested an alleged major wildlife poacher in southern India on Thursday and seized 65 animal skins in the second large anti-poaching raid in one week, wildlife officials said.
Police in the state of Karnataka arrested a notorious wildlife trader known as Prabhakar, seizing 43 otter skins, 21 leopard skins, and one tiger skin, according to the Wildlife Protection Society of India, which assisted in the raid.

http://www.pr-inside.com/rare-animal-skins-seized-in-r346677.htm