The officials of Traffic India, an international NGO monitoring wildlife trade, said they had facilitated training of German Shepherd dogs at government centres as a pilot project and it had shown encouraging results.
One of the trained dogs, Jackie, helped his handlers nab two poachers in Hoshangabad district of Madhya Pradesh on October 26. Several traps for catching wild animals, apart from six live Grey Francolin birds, were recovered from them, a Traffic India spokesperson said.
Last month, Raja, another of the trained dogs kept at Bhrampuri Wildlife Division, Maharashtra, had helped bust another gang dealing in leopard skins and seven persons were arrested. Villagers in Buldhana district had killed a leopard and hidden its body parts but the dog sniffed it out.
“Wildlife crime is more organised and transnational these days. Innovative methods are needed to tackle it and use of dogs is a step in this direction. These specially-trained dogs are not a substitute for existing methods but add another layer to it," Samir Sinha, head of Traffic India, said. Read the full report here.
Source: Tribune News Service, New Delhi.
