Flagship species doing fine, but less exotic ones bear the brunt of poaching

Around Bandipur and Nagarahole, snaring of wild boars, pangolin, spotted deer, and peacocks takes place routinely either for their meat or feathers

Threat to wildlife in India is more from habitat degradation and conflictsituation rather than poaching. Photo: M.A.Sriram

Karnataka’s relatively strong anti-poaching network in protected areas such as Bandipur and Nagarahole has ensured a reduction in poaching of flagship species. But a growing concern is that the exclusive focus on tigers, elephants and leopards is at the cost of less exotic species that are poached for meat or traded as pets.

This year’s World Environment Day theme, ‘Go Wild for Life’, is particularly relevant for Karnataka, recognised for its rich density of tigers and elephants.

Tigernet, an online database on tiger mortality, indicated that there have been seven tiger deaths in the State in 2016, of which only one was confirmed as poaching. In 2015, there were 15 deaths of which none were attributed to poaching.

On the flipside, around Bandipur and Nagarahole, snaring of wild boars, pangolin, spotted deer, peacocks and so on take place routinely either for their meat or feathers (in case of peacock). “Poaching of flagship species has been by and large controlled but it is the less glamorous fauna that are facing the brunt of illegal trade, admitted Naveen Kumar, Honorary Wildlife Warden of Chamarajanagar.

Conservation Biologist Sanjay Gubbi cautioned that one was yet to truly understand the scale at which products from other lesser-known wildlife species were being channelled into the global market from India.

Drawing attention to another dimension of the problem, he said the threat to wildlife by human-animal conflicts and habitat destruction because of infrastructure projects too was immense.

The conflict situation around Bandipur-Nagarahole belt is escalating owing to poor maintenance of elephant proof trenches (EPT) and solar fences, while the elephant habitat in Sakleshpur region has suffered disturbance due to unbridled expansion of mini-hydel projects in the terrain. Similar trends are seen north of Pushpagiri, which have degraded elephant habitats, said Mr. Gubbi.