Notorious MP gangs are on the prowl-Dandeli Wildlife Division on High Alert

If professional hunters from outside the state are threatening the survival of tigers in Karnataka's forests, they are doing so with inside help. Arrests of poachers over the years have revealed a nexus between local tribesmen and other tribes around the country, which specialise in hunting down the big cats and smuggling their parts to Nepal and China.

The poaching network formed by tribesmen of different states came to light as far back as 2004 when the police caught a Hakki Pikki tribesman, E.P. Singh, of the Angadihalli tribal settlement in Hassan district with Rani, the wife of notorious wildlife poacher and smuggler Sansar Chand. Subsequent investigation revealed that the Hakki Pikki tribesmen from the state were in close contact with the Bhaheliya and Baweriya tribes of Haryana and other north Indian states.

The case also led to recovery of 43 otter skins, 23 leopard pelts and a tiger skin and the arrest of two tribesmen along with a forest contractor. One of the arrested, Durru, a Bhaheliya tribesman from Birahuli village of Ritchi taluk in Khatni district of Madhya Pradesh, had laid a number of jaw traps for leopards and tigers in the forests of Anshi and Dandeli in early 2000. “The notorious tiger poachers who have been in this business for over three decades continue to have contacts with the Hakki Pikki tribesmen of Pakshirajapura in Hunsur, Angadihalli in Hassan and of a colony in Shimoga. The Hakki Pikki men are expert wildlife trackers and so the Baheliya often seek their help in laying traps. We suspect that hte 23 leopards which were killed around Halyal were mostly poisned or jaw trapped,” says an investigating officer.

Wildlife conservationists contend that the tribesmen are the biggest threat to forests and not the small gangs operating outside the tiger reserves in Tamil Nadu and Kerala and strongly advocate foot patrolling in the forests to find the jaw traps laid in the mud tracks inside the jungles to ensnare tigers. But their plea has fallen on deaf ears as foot patrolling is not done as extensively as they would like in Karnataka's forests.

An edited version of this article was published in Deccan chronicle and can be read at,

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/cities/bengaluru/tribesmen-are-biggest-threat-forests-288