Sanctuary Cover Story April 2012:
Sushil Kumar
Daila, Divisional Forest Officer, Mangaldai Wildlife Division, recounts a
recent rhino poaching incident in Assam’s Orang National Park and
highlights some positive developments that will help secure the park.
In
my time as a Divisional Forest Officer, I have unfortunately seen four
rhino poaching cases. But nothing pained me nearly as much as the death
of an adult male rhino that was shot by poachers at dusk on January 23,
2010 in the Jhaoni Island of the Rajiv Gandhi Orang National Park. As
soon as the staff heard two gunshots, we set out to nab the poachers. We
tried long and hard, but they escaped. We noticed, however, a
horrifyingly thick blood trail in several places on the three square
kilometre island. Eventually, we were able to locate the rhino. Alive.
But with its horn chopped off. The animal was in acute pain and was
walking in tight circles, in utter distress. We watched helplessly, in
total anguish. Grown men – we were all in tears as we watched the
magnificent animal writhing in pain. We called for the best vets in
Assam, but the rhino died, after struggling for life for two full days.
The entire staff of Orang witnessed first-hand just how ruthless the
poaching gangs are. The rhino would have collapsed from the shock of the
bullet, but even as it breathed they had brutally gouged out its horn.
When on the same island two months later another rhino poaching attempt
was made, one of the poachers was shot dead by our staff. Since then no
incident has taken place. There has been a lull for 26 months now, but
we harbour no illusions. The poachers are there and waiting for us to
drop our guard.
A female rhino was shot dead by poachers in the Rajiv Gandhi Orang
National Park at 1:45 a.m. on January 9, 2011 near the Kachariveti camp.
The poachers decamped with the rhino horn the same night. Their modus operandi
took us by surprise. Normally they would enter when the moon was full;
this time they chose a moonless night. Moreover, they brought the rhino
down with a single bullet.
The next day, as we
sat discussing the issue, all of us depressed, a thought occurred to me:
“What if one or more of the poachers had been photographed in one of
the 30 or so camera traps we had installed for our tiger estimation
work?” Immediately, the Range Officer, Salim Ahmed, our staff and I
began to inspect camera after camera. To our great surprise and delight,
we discovered that on the night of January 4-5, 2011, one of the
cameras actually had caught three poachers carrying two .303 rifles.
Instantly we compared the faces with those of known suspects. But none
of our staff members could identify the men.
Speculating that they might be from nearby villages, we organised a
house-to-house night raid in two neighbouring villages of Kachariveti
tup no.1 and no. 2. We had a large contingent of forest staff with us,
including women foresters/forest guards and even some army personnel.
The search operation began at 10 p.m. and ended at six a.m. the next
day. Leaving nothing to chance, we scoured every single house. Our feet
were numb with the cold as we had walked barefoot in swampy areas and
across the Panchnoi river to reach some of the scattered dwellings. But
we found no poachers.
Got them!
We then decided to announce a cash award of Rs. 25,000/- for
information on the men and printed good quality, large-sized ‘WANTED’
posters in Assamese, with the pictures of the poachers carrying two .303
rifles. We put the posters up all over Darrang and Sonitpur districts.
The plan worked. Within 24 hours, the intelligence information began to
pour in. But the culprits had also been forewarned in the process and
when we got to their homes, predictably, they had vanished. We did,
however, manage to unearth one poacher’s cell phone number from titbits
of paper inside his house. We also began to put word out that the
Government was going to issue shoot-on-sight orders against them if they
did not surrender. That was enough for them. On February 4, 2011, they
entered the Dhekiajuli police station and surrendered. They were
arrested by us then and there and we seized the two rifles, which
perfectly matched the weapons in the camera trap photos. The next day
they were jailed and a charge-sheet meticulously filed, for once with
clinching evidence. We appointed a private lawyer as well as a public
prosecutor and worked very closely with them to ensure we had a
water-tight case. We were determined to have these poachers who had
killed a rhino on our watch convicted.
Piecing together the whole episode, I discovered that on January 4,
at 2.30 p.m., just five days before the poachers had done their dark
deed, I had personally walked that area with my staff on patrol. For all
we know they were around, watching us and waiting until they thought it
was safe to take out the rhino. They had clearly seen the flash, but
could not locate the camera as it had been secured up on a tree. They
then re-entered the area four days later from another point and escaped
being photographed.
Orang must live
Over the last two and half years (September 2009 – February 2012),
there has been a major overhaul of Orang’s protection force and
protocols. Seven new anti-poaching camps, five RCC watch towers, two
floating camps, patrolling roads, bridges and culverts have been added
to the protection infrastructure. And vast improvements in the living
conditions of our field staff have been undertaken. We have also been
provided with three new vehicles, two speed boats, wireless equipment,
IT gadgets and a host of other equipment, apart from our arsenal of arms
and ammunition. Arms training and firing practice have also been given
to the entire staff in collaboration with the Assam State Police.
That is not all. We have diligently settled all ex-gratia cases of
cattle killing by tigers outside the national park, even those pending
since 2002! And today compensation is paid on the spot, within 24 hours
of any cattle kill. Additionally, we have organised awareness campaigns
and formed joint vigilance teams with villagers in the most susceptible
areas. A two-tier regular supervision-cum-inspection protocol of every
protection camp has been instituted. Patrolling is intensively monitored
and recorded on a daily basis at the Camp, Range and Division level.
Strict and prompt action is taken against erring staff and we are
fine-tuning our administrative set up for time-bound disposal of
requests for leave, GPF advance, increments or any other problem raised
by our field staff. Most importantly, senior officers accompany forest
guards on foot patrols and many joint patrols have been initiated with
army and police personnel.
These efforts have borne fruit. Two well-orchestrated encroachment
attempts by over 2,000 suspected Bangladeshi intruders in 2010 were
stymied. A total of 67 hutments built on two separate days were
demolished the very day they were erected. An additional area of 47 ha.
was added to the Orang National Park by the Assam government to prevent
possible encroachment after the incident, so that the river itself
became a natural barrier. To date a total of 60 poachers have been
arrested and prosecuted. As many as eight have been shot dead in
encounters with our staff upon whom unprovoked firing took place. Seven
rifles, a pistol and a large cache of ammunition were seized. We also
had to deal with six distinct incidents of rhinos straying into
villages. Happily, we were able to herd all the rhinos safely back to
the park, at times after painstaking efforts for three to four days. To
our utter relief, not a single case of tiger poisoning has taken place
since December 25, 2010. Not a single rhino has been poached since
January 9, 2011.
All this is good news for us,
but we know we cannot lose focus for even a second. Orang’s rhinos and
tigers depend on us and we will be there for them.
Sanctuary Asia, Vol XXXII No. 2, April 2012
