After losing 24 rhinos, Kaziranga gets just Rs 1 lakh for info on poachers

Barring June, Kaziranga has lost a rhino almost every week to poaching this year. These are the worst figures since the bloodbath witnessed during the height of militancy in the 1980s and 1990s when the park lost an estimated 550 rhinos in less than two decades. In the presence of too many guns and splinter militant groups, it is very difficult to physically defend this crowded mosaic of wetland and grassland without having eyes and ears on the ground to preempt poachers. The Environment ministry has been doubly worried because Kaziranga is also a tiger reserve since 2006. So, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) sanctioned a generous Rs 9.33 crore annual central assistance for Kaziranga on 26 August. While Rs 3.60 crore was meant for building anti-poaching infrastructure, Rs 1 lakh was earmarked for intelligence gathering. Only this Monday, Kaziranga authorities arrested two men for poisoning a tiger. Another three involved in the poaching are still absconding. While this was the first case of tiger poaching in Kaziranga this year, as many as 18 rhinos have already been killed right inside the national park while another six fell to poachers in the peripheral forests of Karbi Anglong and the north bank of the Brahmaputra. [caption id=“attachment_1116593” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  An Indian Rhinoceros lies dead with its horn missing at Kaziranga National Park. Reuters[/caption] Following a poaching spree that wiped out much of the insurgency-ridden state’s prized wildlife during the 1980s and 1990s, a semblance of political stability and shoot at sight orders against poachers in Kaziranga slowly helped the rhino bounce back. From 1999 to 2006, the park lost 41 rhinos to poaching at an annual average of just 5 animals. Then, the 2006 Assembly elections unleashed what many called “reward killing”. The toll jumped to 20 in 2007. Not coincidentally, around two dozen rhinos were killed after the 2009 Lok Sabha polls till late 2010. After a brief lull till the Assembly elections in May 2011, poachers were back again. Kaziranga witnessed the worst this winter when 14 rhinos were poached between January and March. All this while, Kaziranga’s tigers were seldom targeted. Shooting a big cat in grassland is not as easy as gunning down a rhino. Unlike sawing or hacking off a rhino horn, skinning and deboning a tiger carcass takes a lot of time and skill. While poachers would barely make Rs 10 lakh from bulky consignments of 10-12 kg of tiger bone, the pelt, claws, whiskers etc, an average-sized rhino horn weighing 1 kg fetches at least eight times the price in Guwahati. Yet, the seizure of 20 kg of tiger bone from the Guwahati airport in 2010 was an indication that Kaziranga’s 150-plus tiger population was always vulnerable to poaching. Therefore, Monday’s arrest is a big breakthrough. Sources say that an ‘accomplice’ volunteered to lead the investigating team to the gang. The man, it is learnt, was denied his promised ‘cut’ for helping the poachers and wanted to make a few bucks as a ‘reward informer’. Whatever be the details of this case, there is no substitute for developing local intelligence in combating poaching. We need the Special Tiger Protection Force in every tiger reserve. The NTCA has introduced a high-tech thermal imagery system for round-the-clock surveillance last year and also proposed to procure drones to watch over remote forest terrains. But it is logistically impossible to watch over every patch of our open forests. We can construct watchtowers and install thermal cameras every kilometer. But we cannot follow and guard every animal that walks out of protected forests every now and then. For that, we need reliable local intelligence. It requires staff who can cultivate local sources. It also requires funds for developing and retaining an informer base. Unfortunately, the forest bureaucracy is usually reluctant to invest in intelligence gathering. Since funds for intelligence is never accounted for – one cannot keep public records of ‘spies’ and still expect them to deliver – senior forest bureaucracy refuses to sanction any substantial amount lest it is misused at the field level. The NTCA’s standard monthly budget for intelligence gathering is Rs 4,000 per tiger reserve. This is ridiculous because rhino poachers offer Rs 2-4 lakh to their ‘informers’ every time they escort a gang safely inside Kaziranga. While an NTCA official refuses to get into any “competition” because “there is no end to it” and “the government cannot pump in that kind of money”, anti-trade experts maintain that “even two or three sound intelligence-based operations” are sufficient to keep poaching under check. In Kaziranga, 19 rhinos were poached this year till May. Then, park authorities got some leads and conducted several raids to pick up nine poachers – some with arms, ammunition and cash – who operated in the western range of Agaratoli. Not a single rhino was poached in June. All five poaching cases that have been reported since were from the eastern range of Burapahar where the forest guards stand little chance against AK-toting militants belonging to outfits such as Karbi People’s Liberation Tigers and Kuki People’s Army. Sources claim that the Kaziranga administration sought a modest Rs 10 lakh for intelligence gathering and the state forest bosses slashed the budget before forwarding the annual plan to Delhi. A senior NTCA official assures that there is “no question of denying what Kaziranga wants” and that the authority has “sanctioned double the amount it usually sanctions” for intelligence gathering. Since the usual sanction is Rs 50,000, Kaziranga got a princely Rs 1 lakh. For each of Kaziranga’s five ranges, that works out to be less than Rs 1700 per month. Of course, there is Rs 3.60 crore for building physical anti-poaching infrastructure such as watchtowers, thermal camera network and control rooms. But let’s not get into a brain versus brawn debate. jaymazoomdaar@gmail.com