ON THE HUNT FOR POACHERS
The forest department is attempting to boost efforts to track and curb illegal hunting inside SGNP
Lack of efforts by forest department to blame, says environmentalist:
Debi Goenka has alleged that poaching activities were always underway inside the park but the forest department has only taken cognisance now.
“SGNP has failed to implement any of the Bombay high court orders over the years regarding encroachment removal or construction of boundary walls. Poaching has always continued with forest officials conniving with poachers. It is more of the tourism department trying to spend money rather than conserve wildlife,” said Goenka. Most of the poachers were employed with Film City. They worked as painters and cleaning staff near television and film sets
They chose isolated areas such as hilltops where wire snares could be easily set up or 50m away from areas where garbage was being openly dumped around film sets. These areas have regular movement of animals owing to discarded food waste
Hunting animals with snares
Snares are a long piece of wire or rope with a loop at the end attached to a stationary object, such as a large tree or log.
The wire loop is suspended from a branch and the snare catches an animal by the neck, body or leg, as it walks past. As the animal continues moving forward, the snare pulls tighter, trapping, and ultimately killing the animal
Once the animals are caught, a small portion of meat is taken out for a meal and the remaining larger chunks are sold to a meat dealer functioning hand-in-glove with the poachers.