22nd May 2019

Nagpur: Twenty-four tigers and 110 leopards choking to death in forests across the country in the last nine years after getting entangled in wire snares laid for herbivores seem to be just tip off the iceberg! There may be scores of wild animals falling prey to this age-old technique of poachers for bush meat, which is now threatening even tigers.

Though little is being done by the forest departments to tackle menace of wire snares laid by bush meat-hungry poachers, the issue has once again hogged limelight after death of a young tigress on April 13, 2019, inside country’s premium tiger reserve Tadoba in Chandrapur and Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary in Yavatmal on March 19. The Tipeshwar tigress moved with the trap for nearly 18 months and it must have been agonizing.

Considered to be poaching cases, no forest department in the country has figures about number of wild animal deaths exclusively due to these body-gripping traps. However, a database by Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), working to combat poaching and escalating wildlife trade, has recorded 24 tiger and 110 leopard deaths in the country during 2010-2018, which includes five tigers and 14 leopards in Maharashtra. Similarly, 57 leopards were injured and 30 other wild animals died painful death during the same period.

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