A special team on Saturday seized the skin of two leopards and three sambar antlers from a jeep and arrested five persons near Oddanchathram in Dindigul district.
The officials seized the jeep and three motorcycles used by the accused, and are on the lookout for another person.
The arrested have been identified as Ramakrishnan, 38, and Murugan, 45, of Oddanchatram; Gandhi Kumar, 42, of Karur; Subramani, 48, of Thangachiammapatti; and Palanisamy, 50, of Javathupatti. Thangaraj of Kanyakumari escaped.
District Forest Officer P. Sampath told reporters that the officials conducted a vehicle check near Oddanchathram on the Dindigul-Palani Road following a tip-off that poachers were trying to smuggle animal hide and antlers to Kerala through Dindigul.
Preliminary investigations revealed that the arrested were working on private estates at Kodaikanal. They might have hunted the leopard a year ago and hidden the skin somewhere. Two of the arrested persons had served a jail term earlier. “We suspect them to be habitual offenders. The leader of the gang, however, escaped. Once he is arrested, more details of the place of poaching will be known,” an officer said.
A 10-year-old spotted deer was also found dead with bullet injuries near a water hole at Ramaiyanpatti near Dindigul early on Friday. The poachers had hunted the endangered animal and abandoned the carcass when locals rushed to the area on hearing a gunshot.
The forest officials said the arrested persons had received calls from Kerala on their mobile phones in the past two days.
They were produced before the Oddanchatram Judicial Magistrate Court and remanded in judicial custody for 15 days. This is the second seizure of animal skin in the Kodaikanal region in the last four months.
Earlier, officials of the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau seized a tiger skin and a leopard cat skin from a person hailing from Kodaikanal.
Wildlife authorities said there was a great demand for leopard skin in Tibet and Nepal for making jackets. However, there is no demand for leopard skin in the domestic market. Antlers were used for making buttons. In foreign countries, people used fork and spoons made of antlers and such items were expensive, they said.