What Can Media Reports Tell Us about Illegal Wildlife Trade? A Case Study from India

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Illegal wildlife trade (IWT) is a major threat to numerous wildlife species and ecosystems across the world, with established global links to organised criminal activities and an annual value encompassing billions of dollars. Media reports function as an untapped reservoir of publicly available records that can be utilised to understand the nature and scale of this trade.

A report, “Media-Reported Wildlife Poaching and Illegal Trade in India 2020,” was published by the Wildlife Conservation Society-India. It provides a comprehensive overview … Read More

Is It Time to Rethink Wildlife Crime and its Data In India?

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COVID-19 emerged as an endemic zoonotic disease and has now become a pandemic that poses a critical threat to global health security. Over the past several years, humanity has faced a number of zoonotic diseases such as Ebola, Hanta, Influenza A (H1N1), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), and now COVID-19. It is estimated that the top 56 zoonotic diseases are responsible for 250 crore cases of human illness and 27 lakh deaths worldwide each year. Researchers from the … Read More

Trade in Dolphin Oil and Body Parts in Central West Bengal

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South Asian River Dolphin, also known as Ganges River Dolphin (Platanista Gangetica) is an endangered species found in Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna river systems in India and Bangladesh. It is listed as Endangered by IUCN and protected as Schedule I species under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. It is also the National Aquatic Animal of India and the focus of a number of conservation projects.

Around mid-2019, Human and Environment Alliance League (HEAL), a conservation focused NGO in Kolkata, started receiving news of … Read More

Uncovering India’s Illegal Jackal Trade

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Religious beliefs in superstition, coupled with extensive online advertisements, have helped sustain local and transnational markets in a talisman called the ‘jackal horn’. In a recent study published in Journal of Threatened Taxa, scientists from the Wild Canids–India Project team document that the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (Government of India) has seized 126 skins, 8 tails, more than 370 ‘jackal horns’, 16 skulls and two live jackals between 2013 and 2019. The findings indicate that the illegal wildlife trade … Read More

South Asia’s First Integrated Wildlife Law Enforcement Strategy to be Developed in India — TRAFFIC

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TRAFFIC India, in conjunction with CBI and INTERPOL, is conducting a major wildlife law enforcement training in India next week. Officials from eleven countries are attending. See official press release below:

New Delhi: Senior delegates from various enforcement and intelligence agencies of the eight South Asian countries plus China, Russia, and Myanmar will meet next week to develop a cross cutting operational strategy to curb the growing menace of illegal wildlife trade in the region.

The Integrated Investigative Capacity Development … Read More

Two Loris rescued from wildlife smugglers in Delhi airport

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Two Loris – small, nocturnal primates endangered by global illegal poaching – were rescued from the Delhi airport on September 9, 2012. They were being smuggled in the underwear of two men!

“Our Wildlife helpline received a call about two loris confiscated by Delhi International Airport CISF security personnel. When the animals reached us, they were quite traumatized from having been stuffed into socks and then strapped to the smuggler’s underpants as he tried to sneak them past customs in … Read More

Over 600 Smuggled Star Tortoises Returned To India From Malaysia

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A parcel containing 601 Indian star tortoises was returned to Chennai from Malaysia and handed over to the Forest department. The tortoises were handed over from Kuala Lumpur after customs officials in the airport found it in an unclaimed parcel that allegedly arrived from Dhaka, Bangladesh. Star tortoises are not protected species in either Malaysia or Bangladesh. They are protected under the Indian Wildlife Protection Act (WLPA). The tortoises will be quarantined for a couple of days in the local … Read More

Crucial Breakthrough in Cracking Extensive Wildlife Smuggling Ring

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The alleged kingpin of an extensive smuggling network that traded in plant and animal wildlife, Veeriya Shekhar of Manipur, was detained at the Chennai airport by immigration authorities and handed over to the Chhattisgarh police. It is believed that he was at the core of an illegal wildlife trading network that dealt in tiger and leopard bones, deer antlers, pangolin scales and red sandalwood. Information about Shekhar’s role emerged after interrogation of persons who had been arrested during a series … Read More

Private airlines used for smuggling of animal parts

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An RTI query filed with the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) by Governance Now, has revealed that Jet Airways and Kingfisher airlines have been used in the past to smuggle wildlife body parts to the North-eastern states. The issue has come up in a meeting of the special coordination committee on Wildlife Crime and Union Minister of Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh has asked the WCCB officials to take up the issue systematically. The airlines have denied the charge and … Read More