Elephant tusk recovered from poachers
Bijnor
(Uttar Pradesh): Uttar Pradesh Police arrested two men in Bijnor and
recovered from them an elephant tusk, worth thousands of dollars in the
international market. "My informer told me that some people are involved
with elephant tusk smuggling. I went to the spot along with my informer
and other officials. One of the three ran away, but we arrested two and
recovered an elephant tusk," said, Javed Khan, a police officer. Chetan,
one of the arrested men, claimed that he was innocent and was not aware
of the contents in the recovered bag. "We came with a man called Shailesh.
I did not know there was a tusk in the bag. He was the one who ran away,"
he said. Forest officials said the recovered tusk could be linked to the
killing of an elephant in May 2005 in Uttaranchal. "From the side of the
Uttaranchal and the Forest Department, a lot of effort was being made
to recover it. But we were not able to locate the tusk. It is possible
that this is linked to killing of elephant last year as the tusk is one
year old," said B. K. Singh, Deputy Forest Conservator, Lansdowne Forest
Area, Kotdwar. Poaching of animals is rampant in the dense forests of
Uttaranchal. Although, trafficking of wildlife products is banned in the
country, poaching of animals for their skin, bones and body parts, continues
to be a serious problem for the local forest departments and authorities.
According to the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), only male
Asian elephants bear tusks and the demand for ivory has led to the selective
slaughter of tuskers in their prime. In the last six years, close to 100
elephants have been killed and over 40 seizures of ivory and ivory articles
have been reported around India.
- Oct 5, 2006
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