The newly launched Centre for Wildlife Sciences (CWS) under the State Institute for Animal Diseases (SIAD) is expected to help the Forest Department in forensic investigation of wildlife crime and surveillance and prevention of diseases among wild animals.
The centre, to be equipped with state-of-the-art facilities, will provide technical inputs for better handling of vetero-legal and forensic cases, according to veterinary and wildlife experts. This, they point out, will prove to be invaluable during the trial of wildlife crimes in a court of law.
With modern instrumentation and facilities such as PCR assay and ELISA, the reports of autopsy and other tests to prove cases related to poaching and bush-meat hunting would provide better evidence for trial, Nandakumar, Division of Pathology, SIAD, said.
Experts participating in a seminar held at the institute on Thursday said investigators would benefit from the latest methods in identifying a species and the cause of death as well as in post-mortem analysis. “Thorough investigation is a key element in battling wildlife crime,” said A.B. Srivastav, former Director, School for Forensic and Wildlife Health, Jabalpur.
Disease surveillance
The centre will also be equipped with the latest diagnostic techniques for investigation of disease outbreaks among wildlife. The action plan moots regular health surveillance and monitoring for common diseases affecting wildlife, along with steps for prevention and control of infectious diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and canine distemper.
An investigation team would be set up to collect epidemiological data and clinical samples for laboratory diagnosis with the help of forest officials.
The action plan envisages a key role for the centre in strengthening bio-security measures to prevent the transmission of diseases from domestic animals to the wildlife. It also stresses the need to generate a database on the incidence and prevalence of wildlife diseases.
Forest Minister K. Raju laid the foundation stone for the CWS.
