Coronavirus causes spike in poaching

NEW DELHI — A camera trap photo of an injured tigress and a forensic examination of its carcass revealed why the creature died: A poacher’s wire snare punctured its windpipe and sapped its strength as the wound festered for days.

Snares like this one set in southern India’s dense forest have become increasingly common amid the coronavirus pandemic, as people left jobless turn to wildlife to make money and feed their families.

Authorities in India are concerned this spike in poaching could kill not only more endangered tigers and leopards but also species the carnivores depend upon to survive.

“It is risky to poach, but if pushed to the brink, some could think that these are risks worth taking,” said Mayukh Chatterjee, a wildlife biologist with the nonprofit Wildlife Trust of India.

Since the country announced its lockdown, at least four tigers and six leopards have been killed by poachers, the Wildlife Protection Society of India said. And there were numerous other poaching casualties — gazelles in grasslands, foot-long giant squirrels in forests, wild boars and birds such as peacocks and purple morhens.

In many parts of the developing world, lockdowns have sparked concern about increased illegal hunting that’s fueled by food shortages and a decline in law enforcement in some wildlife protection areas.

One of the biggest disruptions involves the endangered pangolin. Often caught in parts of Africa and Asia, the anteater-like animals are smuggled mostly to China and Southeast Asia, where their meat is considered a delicacy and their scales are used in traditional medicine.

In April, the Wildlife Justice Commission reported traders were stockpiling pangolin scales in several Southeast Asian countries awaiting an end to the pandemic.

The illegal trade in pangolins continued “unabated” in Africa, but international trade has been disrupted by port closures, said Ray Jansen, chairman of the African Pangolin Working Group.

Rhino horn is being stockpiled in Mozambique, the Wildlife Justice report said, and ivory traders in Southeast Asia are struggling to sell the stockpiles amassed since China’s 2017 ban on trade in ivory products.

Fears that organized poaching in Africa would spike have largely not materialized — partly because ranger patrols have continued in many national parks and reserves.

But Emma Stokes, director of the Central Africa Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society, said that outside parks, “We are expecting to see an increase in bushmeat hunting for food — duikers, antelopes and monkeys.”

Jansen also said bushmeat poaching was soaring, especially in parts of southern Africa. “Rural people are struggling to feed themselves and their families,” he said.

There are also signs of increased poaching in parts of Asia.

A greater one-horned rhino was gunned down in May in India’s Kaziranga National Park. As in other parts of the world, poachers there pay poor families paltry sums of money to help them. With families losing work from the lockdown, “they will definitely take advantage of this,” warned Uttam Saikia, a wildlife warden.

In neighboring Nepal, for many migrants returning to villages after losing jobs, forests were the “easiest source” of sustenance, said Shiv Raj Bhatta, director of programs at the World Wildlife Fund Nepal.

In Southeast Asia, the Wildlife Conservation Society in April documented the poisoning in Cambodia of three critically endangered giant ibises for the wading bird’s meat. More than 100 painted stork chicks were also poached in late March in Cambodia at the largest waterbird colony in Southeast Asia.