Elephant Poaching & Ivory Trade Investigation
The elephant evokes
a strong emotional reaction in India. Venerated as a
god, idolised on the big-screen as a best friend of
man, and in desperate straits due to poaching and loss
of habitat in the wild. Only male Asian Elephants bear
tusks. The demand for ivory has led to the selective
slaughter of tuskers in their prime. As a result the
ratio of tuskers and females has fallen to an alarming
low.
WPSI
has recorded the loss of over 43 elephants due to poaching
from September 2000 to March 2002. During that period,
there were over 38 seizures of raw ivory and ivory articles
around India. WPSI also has records of a total of 77
elephants that were killed during this time in man-elephant
conflicts.
WPSI launched its Elephant Conservation
Project in June 1999 in collaboration with two other
organizations. We established an informer network in
1999 in the Corbett-Rajaji region of
Uttaranchal to track down elephant poachers and ivory
traders. The network was expanded in 2000-2001 to cover
parts of South India, West Bengal, Orissa and Assam.
Information and assistance provided by WPSI’s
informers has led to some significant seizures of ivory.
Our Wildlife Crime Database
now has information on the ivory trade and elephant
poaching from Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Orissa,
Assam, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Bihar. Data analysis
has revealed where elephant poaching is rampant, towns
and cities where the illegal ivory trade is prevalent
and trade routes that are used to move ivory out of
the country.
We have held workshops in villages
around Rajaji National Park with villagers, forest officials
and NGOs. At the workshops we discussed ways to reduce
the man-elephant conflict and provide compensation for
crop loss and damage caused by elephants.
WPSI also assisted in ‘Operation
Waterhole’ - the filling of 12 waterholes in the
Dholkhand Range of Rajaji National Park to provide water
for wild elephants during dry periods.
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