Tooth and nail in Delhi's tiger trade
By Neeta Lal
DELHI - In a raid conducted this month, India's Wildlife Crime Control Bureau
(WCCB) unearthed a haul that would be a poacher's delight and a
conservationist's nightmare.
In the innards of a house on the outskirts of New Delhi, the WCCB stumbled upon
bags containing 15 kilograms of tiger bones and body parts, including
blood-soaked claws, hair, teeth, blood and a bottle of tiger fat.
Apart from the grisly findings - worth their weight in gold on the
international illegal wildlife market - the raid also yielded 19 tools, traps
and chisels used by poachers to ensnare wild animals. The discovery shocked
activists and animal lovers, and left wildlife
officials outraged over the impunity with which the poaching gang was operating
right under their noses in a high-safety zone like Delhi.
This is hardly Delhi's first brush with such crime. Large-scale poaching of
tigers grabbed headlines in 1993, when one of the biggest seizures in Indian
history captured 400 kg of tiger bones, eight tiger skins, and 59 leopard skins
in the capital. The huge size of the haul confirmed that organized wildlife
crime had spread deep into India.
In 2005, Delhi police raided the house of notorious wildlife smuggler Sansar
Chand. The police found two tiger skins, 28 leopard skins, 42 otter skins, 14
tiger canines, three kilograms of tiger claws, 10 tiger jaws, 60 kilograms of
tiger and leopard paws and 135 kilograms of porcupine quills. "The sight was so
gruesome," commented an officer at the time, "it was almost like walking into a
slaughterhouse."
With such gruesome discoveries now increasingly common, Delhi is fast emerging
as an epicenter for illegal wildlife trade and a haven for wildlife criminals.
According to the police, smuggled wildlife products are routed to Delhi from
central, western and southern India and Uttaranchal before being dispatched to
international markets. The animal skins, for instance, are collected from all
over India in Sadar Bazar in old Delhi after traveling through various routes.
Once they are assembled here, they are further dispatched to the neighboring
countries including China and Nepal.
The lucrative bazaar also appears to enforce strict quality control. In 2005,
much to the dismay of Delhi police, a large consignment of seized leopard and
otter skins bore a rubber stamp on the back, reading "OK Tested, W-7", a seal
and signatures. In other words, a factory-like quality control inspection is
active even in this illegal trade.
With wildlife criminals and poachers operating with such impunity, Indian
wildlife is under a major threat. The latest tiger census shows that the
animal's numbers have plummeted to an abysmal 1,411 from 3,508 in 1997, a
drastic dip of 60%. Furthermore, with illegal trafficking in wildlife products
continuing to flourish, WPSI records show that between 1994-2003, 684 tigers,
2,336 leopards and 698 otters were killed by poachers in India.
The WPSI has documented the illegal killing of 719 tigers and 2,474 leopards
between 1994 and 2004. Included in the total are 16 tigers killed by
electrocution (a method now popular with poachers) over the past few years.
Tigers are threatened by habitat loss across vast swathes of India. Still, a
more immediate threat is the sale of their body parts - testicles, claws,
teeth, hair, fat - which are used in traditional Chinese medicine and net
astronomical profits for poachers and illegal traders.
According to Interpol, trade in illegal wildlife products is worth some US$12
billion a year. India, home to a wide range of exotic animals, is now a major
source market for the trade. And with demand for wildlife products surging
globally, India's wildlife heritage is being ravaged to fulfill demand.
Wildlife experts state that a single tiger's body parts can be sold for over
$10,000 with the bones alone netting hundreds of dollars per kilogram.
Trade in tiger parts is a lucrative enterprise and criminals rarely get caught.
This is ominous for wild tiger populations already whittled by habitat loss,
prey depletion and genetic isolation.
Experts say that seizures of tiger products and incidents of poaching in India
and Indochina ratcheted up during the early 1990s due to spiraling demand for
tiger products in East Asia. With China losing much of its indigenous wild
tiger population and its domestic supply of tiger bones, market pressure for
tiger products shifted to its neighbors, especially India.
India has become a major supplier of skins, bones, claws, paws, even whiskers,
of the big cats to burgeoning markets in China and Southeast Asia where they
are used for clothes, balms, aphrodisiacs, charms and accessories.
Even so, judicial convictions relating to wildlife cases are abysmally low. Out
of 748 cases in India where skins of tigers, leopards or otters have been
seized, there have been only 14 convictions. The cases also take years before
reaching a conclusion. "While India has the most comprehensive laws their
implementation is so tawdry that most criminals are able to get away no matter
how heinous their crime is," said Akriti Pakkad, a Delhi-based lawyer. "And
this is especially true of wildlife criminals."
According to Pakkad, a lack of awareness on wildlife issues and the paucity of
aggressive enforcement strategies in the courts are reasons why illegal
wildlife traders and poachers flagrantly violate laws.
In contrast, the United States is very stringent on these counts. In response
to the widespread availability of tiger-based products, the San Francisco-based
World Wildlife Fund pushed for the passage of the Rhino and Tiger Product
Labeling Act. This 1998 legislation made it illegal to sell any medicine
labeled as containing tiger or rhino parts in the US, whether or not the
enforcement agency prosecuting the violator can prove that these products are
authentic. The law carries a penalty of up to six months in prison, and fines
up to $12,000 per violation.
Indian wildlife criminals have become audacious due to the slack implementation
of wildlife laws. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species
(CITE, the largest wildlife treaty in the world) suspended India from the
Convention on December 22, 2004, due to its laxity.
Meanwhile, under the facade of "tiger protection", the Indian government
channels funding for infrastructure and salaries for the 4,960 front-line
forest staff in the 28 tiger reserves in 17 states.
According to Belinda Wright, there are theoretically 1,576 tigers in these
reserves, so more than three guardians are available per tiger. The makes the
rampant tiger killings hard to explain. Also, there's little transparency in
the government's fund management and an apparent apathy in Delhi towards the
survival of exotic wildlife in India.
"To provide protection from poachers, we need fast-moving vehicles, modern
communication equipment and weapons and young, trained staff. We are short on
all these counts," said a ministry of environment official who admitted that in
tiger poaching cases officials are often requested to remain tight-lipped or
attribute the death to a territorial fight.
As Wright puts it, India needs dedicated tiger protection forces in all the
areas with high density tiger populations and better cross-border enforcement.
Wright feels the country also needs to press China to enact a trade ban on
tiger parts and crack down on the illegal trade.
Until such measures come to be, Delhi's police will continue to stumble upon
grisly skeletons in poachers' closets.
Neeta Lal is a widely published writer/commentator who contributes to
many reputed national and international print and Internet publications.
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