It’s already a jungle out there, and now forest officials have their work cut out even more. Poachers are using the Internet to trade in wildlife, adding to officials’ woes, as most offenders are in foreign countries and nabbing them becomes a herculean task.
Forest officials realised that the Internet was also being used for wildlife crime when they were investigating 60 cases of trade of sand boas in Andhra Pradesh. They found the links to four websites that were part of the syndicate involved in the trade. These websites referred to the snake double engine, since it is said to have two heads.
Of the four websites, two were traced to the USA, chief conservator of forests, Andhra Pradesh, PV Padmanabhan, said. The case was then referred to the Union ministry of communication and information technology.
Padmanabhan revealed this at a day-long conference of forest and police officers from the southern states, organised in the city, to discuss problems faced in preventing violations of the Wildlife Protection Act.
Karnataka principal chief conservator of forests Indu B Srivastav said the sand boa was poached rampantly in the state due to superstitious beliefs. Forest officials said most of the snakes were poached in the Chikkaballapur region. Since the place lay on the border of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, people from both the states were involved in poaching the snake.
DGP, CID, DV Guruprasad pointed that there has been an increase in wildlife crime in all the four southern states of Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, due to increasing demand for endangered animals, especially from foreign nations.
DIG, forest cell, MC Narayana Gowda said that leopard poaching cases were fast outnumbering tiger poaching. In 2009, 27 leopard poaching cases were reported.
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