Vanishing Stripes: Save the Bengal Tiger

Meghamalai Wildlife Sanctuary in the Theni district of Tamil Nadu, adjacent to Periyar National Park in Kerala and Srivilliputhur Tiger Reserve  in Tamil Nadu, forms an important landscape for tigers. The total area spans 1800 sq km and with Periyar as a viable breeding ground, Meghamalai (soon to be included in the network of Tiger Reserves in India) becomes a habitat capable of providing suitable environment for a healthy population of tigers. 

Anti-snare patrolling activities were begun around October 2013 in the fringe areas of the Meghamalai WLS. Within the first two months, the patrolling team recovered 36 snares and also apprehended a poacher before he could enter the sanctuary. During a routine night patrol, the team encountered a poacher armed with a loaded rifle in the fringe areas of the Gudalur range. During interrogation, he confessed to having poached a sambar (Rusa unicolor), a major prey species for the tigers, and selling its meat four days earlier. He has been charged under the appropriate sections of the Indian Penal Code. 

Snares have become a bane in many national parks around the country with a number of wildlife deaths attributed to them. Infamous for being one of the slowest and most agonising killers of wildlife, the crude simplicity of the mechanism involved has made it a popular weapon for a number of communities involved in the hunting and trade of ‘bush meat’ around the country. 

Though the snare is usually set up to trap wild boar, sambar and deer, popularly known as ‘bush meat’, there have been many instances of larger animals, like tigers and leopards, getting caught in these snares and dying a horrible death. Since snares are usually put in a large number to maximise the chances of prey being caught, regular patrolling by trained personnel in the target areas is the only way to maintain snare-free national parks and wildlife sanctuaries.