A mutilated body of a full-grown tiger was found in the Tadoba buffer zone and another tiger was trapped by poachers and killed in the reserve last month. What's even more a matter of concern is that 13 big cats were killed within Tadoba's core areas in last 10 years. Of these, two tigers were killed in 2002-2003 - one of them through poisoning by poachers in Mohrali jungle while another was killed in 2011-12 in core area of reserves as per statistics available with the state wildlife wing.
Sources vehemently believe the presence of an inter-state poachers' gang in the area, who strike at will, in cahoots with the help of locals and forest personnel. Five persons arrested on Friday included three forest Development Corporation of Maharashtra (FDCM) employees in connection with a poaching of a tiger whose mutilated body was found in a buffer zone of Tadoba last month.
Still, this did not alarm the state wildlife wing. It replaced Tadoba field VK Sinha with one Virendra Tiwari, who never worked in wildlife wing in his two decade service in the state forest department. Sinha too did not work a single day in wildlife wing in his forest career before joining as field director of Tadoba.
Situation is the same in neighbouring Pench tiger reserve in the state. A Ashraf is the field director of the reserve. He too has no previous experience for working either in wildlife sanctuary or tiger reserves. Moreover, none of these officers underwent training at the Wildlife Institute of India (WII).
The ongoing mess, particularly growing poaching cases in the Tadoba and other reserves are the result of inexperienced officers posted there who have hardly knowledge about the wildlife management, said a senior forest officer, who once worked in Tadoba. Read the full report here.
Source: Pradip Kumar Maitra, Hindustan Times, Nagpur.
