BHUBANESWAR: Continuing its offensive against wildlife trade, the Forest department on Sunday zeroed on another smuggler of Kalahandi in possession of four more leopard skins. “If the administration succeeds in nabbing him, the number of total leopard skins seized from the Kalahandi South and North divisions will be 12,” said a senior forest officer, a day after a joint team of Wildlife Crime Control Bureau of Chhattisgarh and Odisha arrested seven persons and seized nine big cat skins.
A special team is on the ground in the southern division to nab him, department sources said. The department is progressing with its investigation on the basis of information it collected from the seven accused. Of them, three arrested from South division and four from North division have different links. The investigators are also looking for the persons who handed over the skins to these middlemen.
“After interrogation, we came to know that the person who handed over skins to them in north division is still at large,” said Kalahandi North DFO Nitish Kumar. Officials of the south division said they have also come to know about a person with different name who had handed over skins to the three middlemen in their jurisdiction. Chhattisgarh officials have already spoken about possibility of a bigger syndicate working in the region for smuggling of big cat skins.
Officials said they have seized the mobile phones of the accused to find out more details about the inter-state racket. The seven accused will be forwarded to court on Monday after which both the divisions will seek their remand for four days for further investigation.
Meanwhile, wildlife experts have called for strengthening of protection and patrolling measures for leopards to prevent their poaching in the region. Wildlife conservationist and honorary wildlife warden for Angul Aditya Panda said a census should be carried to ascertain the exact number of leopard in different parts of the State to improve protection measures for them.
“While the Status of Leopards in India-2018 released by Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change last year says Odisha has around 760 leopards, it has not specified region-wise population of these big cats,” Panda said and added that it is important for any DFO and range officers to know the number of leopards in their jurisdiction to work out protection measures.