Wildlife

Soon enough, the leopard might become as endangered as the tiger is. Four leopards have been poached and their body parts entered into illegal wildlife trade every week for 10 years in India. If the trend is unchecked, the leopard too may be pushed to the brink of extinction. And, the leopard is arguably paying a collateral damage for its more precious cousin, the tiger. As of now, almost 90 per cent of leopard seizures are that of skins. One of the reasons for the selective targeting of...

Karnataka is the second most dangerous zone for the leopard, the distant cousin of the coveted tiger that is now being increasingly targeted by poachers across India. The Uttarakhand-Uttar Pradesh zone is the biggest source for leopard parts and skins, while Delhi is the epicentre of the illegal wildlife trade, according to a just-released TRAFFIC study “Illuminating the Blind Spot: A study on illegal trade in leopard parts in India”. Karnataka, incidentally, has one of the biggest number of...

It’s an old practice that seems to have made a comeback. The use of snares and traps to hunt wildlife had always been a conventional practice, one that had gradually given way to modern forms of poaching. But if numbers are anything to go by, these are emerging as a preferred form of catching wild animals in Karnataka. Over 80 traps and snares have been recovered or dismantled by the state forest department in Bandipur and Nagarhole national parks in the last three months. The forest department...

When Manas National Park was removed from the UNESCO World Heritage in Danger List in June this year, there was a lot to cheer about. The hard work put in by conservation groups has been recognised, but a bigger danger lies in the future — one that can virtually wash away the national park. Well, almost. If a recent study conducted by Partha J Das (Head, Water, Climate & Hazard Programme) and Bibhab K Talukdar (Secretary General) of Aaranyak is to be taken even with a pinch of salt, there's much...

The main threat to Kaziranga National Park in the next 25 years will come not from poachers or encroachers, but the 70 dams that are being built in the Eastern Himalayas of India’s Northeast. Experts who have just completed a study of the region fear that Kaziranga National Park and Manas National Park, both World Heritage Sites of natural importance, might be adversely affected by dam-building on the Brahmaputra and its tributaries. Partha J Das (Head, Water, Climate & Hazard Programme) and...

Almost half (45 per cent) of the world’s threatened sea turtle populations are found in the northern Indian Ocean. The study by top sea turtle experts have also determined that the most significant threats across all of the threatened populations of sea turtles are fisheries bycatch, accidental catches of sea turtles by fishermen targeting other species, and the direct harvest of turtles or their eggs for food or turtle shell material for commercial use. Five of the world’s 11 most threatened...

The black-naped hare, or the Indian hare, is so commonly found in the wild in India that it is described as a species of Least Concern by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and accorded least protection by India’s Wildlife (Protection) Act. But a recent spurt in poaching of this animal in South India has wildlifers worried. This came to light earlier this month when forest officials nabbed 21 poachers involved in the hunting of the Indian hare ( Lepus nigricollis) in...

Over a third of Indian pharmacies continue to sell diclofenac to livestock farmers. Manufacture and sale of this drug for veterinary use has been banned in India since 2006, because of its toxicity to critically endangered vultures. Farmers are still illegally purchasing human diclofenac to treat their cattle. Diclofenac was held responsible for bringing three South Asian species of Gyps vultures to the brink of extinction. The population crash was first noted in the late 1990s. Nepal and...

South Africa has made a move that will not please rhino conservationists anywhere. It’s a move that may soon seek lifting of the global world ban on rhino horn trading, something that has been in place for 34 years. The Department of Environmental Affairs of South Africa last month placed two advertisements on its tenders website to initiate a series of studies that could pave the way for a resumption of controlled rhino-horn trading. These are ostensibly meant to include a detailed assessment...

This tiny hamlet is a birdwatcher’s paradise. It’s also an ornithologist’s nightmare. For, Jatinga remains a place where birds are supposed to commit suicide. Jatinga village, inhabited primarily by members of the Jaintia tribe, on the foothills of the Barail Range in the Northeast Indian state of Assam is a halting place for many birds. This mysterious phenomenon which has had ornithologists from the world over fumbling for answers is known to locals as a suspected mass suicide committed by...