The deployment of rapid action force or emergency response team is welcome in a crisis situation. But, it cannot be a substitute for foot patrolling and monitoring of the jungles for an independent study of conflict areas, say wildlife activists.
D. Rajkumar of Wildlife Conservation Foundation said not all conflict situations are straightforward, where a leopard can be sighted on a rooftop or in a bush. There are instances when a carnivore stalks the prey, retreats into the jungle with its kill and returns again to stalk a new prey. Hence capturing that particular animal calls for elaborate planning.
“While darting an animal and tranquilizing is easy, it is preceded by following a host of other protocols like effectively tracking it. It is important to track the right animal for which foot patrolling and continuous assessment of the field is a must,” he added.
The normal practice to zero-in on an animal causing trouble in a human landscape is to place cameras in critical areas, study and analyse its images to ascertain if there are any physical injuries incapacitating it, or match it with images of other animals with a known history of cattle kill, before taking a decision to capture it.
In case the wrong animal is darted and shifted from the jungles, the conflict situation will escalate and the local support for wildlife will evaporate as their patience will run out, cautioned Mr. Rajkumar.
