Wildlife News from India

Over 200 protected parakeets rescued from train

admin — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 22:52:44 +0000

Ahmedabad: They pecked and necked in public, but nobody really minded the cacophonic romance by this bunch of parakeets seized as

illegal railway consignment on Wednesday.

Over 200 of the rose-ringed variety of parakeets were rescued by the forest department from Kalupur railway station and taken to the office of conservator of forests(CCF) in Hansol.

Conservator of forests (wildlife crime cell), Dinesh Sharma says, “We got a tip-off from New Delhi about this illegal consignment of rose-ringed parakeets parcelled from Meerut to Ahmedabad by Ahmedababad-bound Haridwar Mail.”

More at Times of India

Greens under fire, wildlife hits the roads – Peacocks, Vultures, Snakes

admin — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 22:51:58 +0000

New Delhi This month, a four-quintal black-and-white lactating jersey cow sauntered onto a part of the city even people don’t have access to: the apron-side of the Indira Gandhi International Airport. While the cow’s ownership was doubtful, it was clear that it came from an adjoining area affected by the frenzied developmental activities at the airport.

There’s more. This year, more than 50 snakes were rescued from the Prime Minister’s residence and the adjoining area of Lutyens’ Delhi. ‘Homeless’ peacocks were mauled to death by dogs after parts of the Siri Fort forest were cut down for a Commonwealth Games project.

The city has been a dramatic war-zone, with people on one side and an unexpected amount of wildlife on the other.

The number of stranded animals, including protected species, is climbing higher: indicating that tree-cutting and developmental activities are shaking the last refuges of animals in the city.

More at Express India

Study can answer why tigers stray

admin — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 22:48:38 +0000

Very few wildlife events generate greater interest among the masses than a tiger straying into a Sunderbans village. The sight of the big cat, cowering in fear, desperately trying to save itself from panic-stricken villagers is indeed a pathetic one. The villagers don’t find it funny either, for essentially they neither want to harm the magnificent animal nor lose their limbs or lives in a tiger attack. But straying hasn’t stopped. Even more surprisingly, no effort has yet been made to find out why the tigers keep straying into the villages.

We can go by the accepted reasons territorial fights, prey scarcity or old-age blunting of their hunting skills. Of late, the rising water level has also been blamed while pregnant animals are known to stray into villages, where they look for safe places to deliver litters.

More at Times of India

Plight Tiger – 2008

admin — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 22:47:24 +0000

New Delhi: At the beginning of this year, a ground-breaking, new, and scientific tiger census, which took two years to complete, announced that there were 1,411 wild tigers left in India. By November, the Government had admitted that of that number, 14 tigers had been poached this year. The figure actually may be nearly double.

More at Indian Express: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/plight-tiger/405197/

Wild elephants kill 4 in Bangladesh hills

admin — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 23:34:21 +0000

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

Czechs remanded for smuggling insects

admin — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:00:13 +0000

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

Seizure of tiger bones shows big cats still a target

admin — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:59:42 +0000

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

Orissa: Trading of wild boar rampant in Kandhamal

admin — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:59:04 +0000

Inspite of Wildlife Protection Act, the practice of trading wild boars by the tribals is rampant in Kandhamal district of Orissa. If it goes on, then the boar population of the district would come down to a marginal point nearing extinction..

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

Directory on Environmental NGOs in India – 2008

admin — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 23:43:12 +0000

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

Second tiger at Sariska in July

admin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:06:18 +0000

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

Newly Discovered Greater Adjutant Stork Population Thriving in Bihar

admin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:05:27 +0000

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’s wildlife, forests face mining threat

admin — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:04:56 +0000

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

admin — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:38:53 +0000

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

admin — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:37:06 +0000

Tiger flies 200km to Sariska

RAKHEE ROY TALUKDAR

The tiger after it reached Sariska. Picture by Gopal Sunger

Jaipur, June 28: The tiger has landed in Sariska at last. In an air force helicopter.

After three long and barren years, Sariska regained its stripes as a tiger reserve today, carrying out what experts said was the world’s first “scientifically planned” relocation of the big cat.

The 881sqkm national park in Alwar had made headlines in 2004-05 when unchecked poaching turned its cat count into zero.

That shame was erased around 12.30 this afternoon when a tranquillised male tiger, which had taken off from a makeshift helipad at Ranthambore National Park, completed its 200km flight to land at Nayapani, Sariska. The star guest was then let into a soft, specially prepared enclosure.

Ranthambore has 40 to 45 tigers, including 14 cubs, and has been faced with a problem of plenty with reports of territorial fights. The older tigers are said to have chased some of the younger ones out of the forest.

More news at The Telegraph

India’s endangered rhinoceros battles for survival

admin — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:34:43 +0000

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