Odisha’s dwindling wildlife a wakeup call

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Odisha’s dwindling wildlife a wakeup call

Saturday, 19 October 2019 | Biswajit Mohanty

In the last nine years and a half since April 2010, as many as 727 elephants have died of which 257 (more than 35 per cent) have died due to unnatural causes – 113 due to electrocution, 77 to poaching, 26 to poisoning, 26 to train kills, five to road kills and 10 after falling into manmade structures like open wells and irrigation projects. The reasons for death could not be ascertained in 147 cases as carcasses are found in decomposed State and some just skeletal remains.

Last year, 2018-19, saw the highest elephant mortality till date – 91 of them,  of which 36 were due to unnatural causes and in 27 cases the reason could not be known. The year also saw the highest number of electrocutions till date — 24 of them of which 12 were by sagging power lines and 12 by hooking of live wire for poaching. The electrocution of seven elephants together near Kamalanga, Dhenkanal on October 27, 2018 is recorded as one of the biggest ever tragedies in the annals of India’s wildlife history. The recent months saw seven train kills,  four of which were in one incident near Teldihi in Jharsuguda on April 16, 2018.

The period also saw the highest number of human kills by elephants — 92 humans as the human- elephant conflict worsened.

During 2019-20, with six months still to go, Odisha has already lost 33 elephants and human kills by elephants is at an alarming 59, heading once again to a all time high mortality for both elephants and humans. The road kill of three elephants on the National Highway at Balijodi, Keonjhar on August 22 is among the worst-recorded elephant deaths on Indian roads.

While tiger population has gone up in most Indian States, in Odisha it has come down or remained static. In 2004, the State had claimed the presence of 192 tigers which came down to 28 in 2014 . Even after spending crores of rupees on tiger conservation during the last four years, the numbers continued to be stagnant at 28 as per the 2018 census.

Satkosia witnessed an ill advised venture into tiger tourism in June,2018 which went horribly wrong within two months as one of the two tigers relocated from Madhya Pradesh was poached and the other had to be caught and brought back into an enclosure after she attacked humans. Ironically, the Government opted for the  Rs 26 crore relocation project but five years ago had preferred to keep a straying Sakosia male tiger at Nandan Kanan Zoo in 2013 instead of releasing him to  bolster the tiger population there.

The Sunabeda sanctuary which had got an in principle approval about a decade ago  from MoEF to turn it into a Tiger Reserve has not been notified yet by the Odisha Government despite constant reminders from the NTCA.

Leopards are being regularly poached for their skins and body parts.

While the Olive Ridley turtles, Odisha’s sports mascot, continue to be massacred in thousands off the Odisha coast by illegal trawlers, the Rushikulya river mouth nesting site did not witness mass nesting this year and yet again the Ridleys avoided the Devi river mouth. The fresh water turtles of Odisha are having a bad time too, being poached in large numbers for smuggling to other States and abroad.

Pangolin, the most trafficked wild animal in the world, was rampantly poached in the last 15 months. 

This is evident from the several seizures of pangolin scales and live pangolins. On June 18, 2018 when Shamsuddin Khan was caught with 5 kg of pangolin scales near Daspalla, Nayagarh, it was not known to the forest department that he was one of the most wanted wildlife smugglers in the State until the Crime Branch of Police took over the case.

Though the Forest Department has introduced a toll free number at the Chief Wildlife Warden’s office for receiving information about wildlife poaching and smuggling, the Wildlife Crime Cell is inactive.

The credibility of the Odisha State Board for Wildlife, whose chairman is the Chief Minister himself, has a questionable existence since the last two decades.

(Dr Mohanty is secretary, Wildlife Society of Orissa, M: 9437024265)

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