NEWSLINKS
US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Rediff Shopping

Shop & gift from thousands of products!   Books     Music       Apparel   Jewellery   Flowers   More..      Safe Shopping

Special agency to probe wildlife crimes

The government plans to set up an exclusive agency to investigate wildlife crimes, Environment and Forests Minister T R Baalu informed the Rajya Sabha in New Delhi Friday.

In his statement on a calling attention motion on the death of wild animals in various parts of the country, Baalu said the Centre was trying to ensure increased allocations to state governments. He also said it would also ensure the expeditious flow of funds, strengthening of protection infrastructure, creation of a specialised agency for monitoring and collecting intelligence data on poaching and seek international co-operation for cubing trans-border trade.

He said 200 panther skins and many other parts, such as nails of animals, had been seized recently. The cases had been referred to the Central Bureau of Investigation, he added.

Baalu, however, ruled out a CBI inquiry into the recent tiger tragedy at the Nandankanan zoological park in Orissa.

Baalu said his ministry had obtained inputs and opinions from experts from all over the country and it had drawn up a plan of action to avoid a recurrence of such incidents.

A high-level committee of the Union Government will monitor the plan, he said.

He said the ministry had set up another expert committee to visit all zoos in the country and give recommendations about their maintenance.

The committee, appointed soon after the death of tigers, had said in a report that the tigers died of a heavy infection of trypanosomiasis. The committee did not find that the tigers were given heavy doses of Berenil.

The spread of the disease was due to overcrowding of animals in enclosures, ingress of livestock into the zoo because of breaches in the boundary wall, non-repair of fencing of the white tiger safari that was damaged by last year's cyclone, unhygienic methods of fencing and poor drainage increased vector roles due to bushes and shrubs in the enclosures' vicinity, it had pointed out.

Baalu said the ministry felt that the response of the zoo administration was inadequate to meet the situation. The authorities had failed to take appropriate mitigative measures after the death of three tigers in 1999 from the disease and again after the death of a tiger on June 23 this year.

No action was taken for determining the parasite loads in the blood of the tigers and providing prophylactic treatment to the animals between June 23 and July 2.

The ministry had conveyed this to the state government, to take disciplinary action against those responsible for the lapse, he said.

He said there was no shortage of experts in the country, but admitted that there was no curriculum in schools to teach students about maintenance and food for animals.

He admitted that overcrowding of animals, poor standards of sanitation and hygiene and inadequate expertise in health care jointly contributed to the death of precious wildlife.

He held the director and veterinarian of the Nandankanan Zoo partially response for the death of 12 tigers, stating they were ''unable to show professional competence''.

Baalu also said that several 'upsetting' incidents of the death of lions, chitals and peacocks were received from the Gir, Ranthambore and Morena zoos and sanctuaries.

Agencies

Back to top

Tell us what you think of this report