Poaching threat has Sariska guards on their toes
Sariska Tiger Reserve may have come a long way from 2004 – the year it lost all its tigers to poaching – but poaching of smaller animals, attack on forest guards and hostility from villagers gives little time to the guards to rest easy.
In 2017, Sariska officials registered seven cases of poaching. Poachers fired at two forest guards in January last year, on a day when chief minister Vasundhara Raje was recounting, at the Jaipur Literature Festival, how her government cracked down on poachers.
“The landscape of this reserve makes protection difficult. There are two major roads running through the middle. Plus there are some 26 villages inside the core area, unwilling to relocate despite repeated offers of fat compensations,” says Sariska deputy conservator of forests Balaji Kari.
Narendra Singh Rathore, a hunter-turned-conservationist, says the motives of hunting have changed over time. “Earlier, it was done for sport. Outlawed in 1968, it became a business and animals were hunted for their body parts. These days, sambar and wild boar are hunted for meat,” says Rathore.
The body parts of tiger, such as skin, nails, bones, are known to fetch lakhs of rupees in the international market. Poachers in Sariska work through an organised network — local villagers are foot soldiers — and connivance of forest department officials also emerged in cases.
Conservation efforts are also hampered by a shortage of staff. Of the 300 guards it ought to have, there are only 110, officials said.
Conservationist Nishant Singh Sisodia says although organised network has been busted and poaching kingpin Sansar Chand, threat to the big cats can’t be ruled out. If the villagers are not won over, the threat can never be eliminated, he adds.
SARISKA (ALWAR):