Source::RSS
The cases of wildlife poaching have surged in community forests, sanctuaries and national parks in the Karnali State since the nationwide lockdown ordered on March 24 to contain the spread of COVID-19. Poachers seem to have taken undue advantages of the stay-at-home order as the focus of the government and the agencies have shifted towards the prevention of control of the pandemic.
The patrolling team of Shey-Phoksundo National Park in Dolpa District this week recorded two cases of poaching. Park’s Conservation Officer Saroj Mani Poudel shared that they had seized 20 sets of loaded homemade guns and three pieces of hides of Himalayan Ghoral left at Thulibheri Rural Municipality and Tripurasundari Municipality.
The national park understands that the people residing in the buffer zone and around the national park could have been involved in poaching. “With more and more weapons and dead bodies of wild animals sighted during the lockdown, it indicates that cases of poaching have increased considerably, especially in the mountainous areas in the State,” asserted Poudel.
Since the State government banned yarsha picking this year due to COVID-19 pandemic, the attention of yarsha pickers could have shifted towards illegal killing and trading of wildlife, the national park officials assume.
Also poachers might be taking advantage of the lockdown since people are indoors while wild animals come out of the forests and roam around in the adjacent human settlements. Poudel shared that the locals in the national park areas and buffer zone have been asked to surrender their arms within 35 days if they possess any.
Police also recently arrested yarsha-pickers from the highland in Shey-poksundo Rural Municipality who were illegally picking yarsha despite the ban. Since then the Division Forest Office here has increased surveillance in those areas, according to Chief District Officer, Suresh Sunar.
Similarly, just before the lockdown, a stag was found dead and rotten at Patalganga in Surkhet district. Towards the mid of April, another dead stag was spotted but dead at Ghusra in the same district. Locals found a stray baby antelope nearby Kakrebihar in Surkhet in mid-April which was rescued and later released in the wild.
More than 15 wild animals including four antelopes and wild bores have been found dead in Kakrebihar in the last three months. As there is no fencing in the Kakrebihar, a small hillock, wild animals emerge from the woods and enter the human settlement which serves as a breeding ground for the poachers. The State government has recently awarded a tender to install fences around Kakrebihar to conserve the wildlife and to protect the humans from wildlife. Jajarkot District has also recorded increasing cases of illegal killing of wild animals, according Borekot Rural Municipality. Since rangers could not get to their duty stations for patrolling, poachers have taken advantage, said Govinda Singh, Borekot Municipality’s Chief Administrative Officer.
The Ministry of Forests and Environment has urged the line agencies and concerned officials under to resume their field works to curb the poaching and illegal trafficking of the body parts of the wild animals.
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