The Government on Monday blamed the shortage of adequate manpower for the inaction against poachers of endangered species of wildlife and admitted it has to depend on States for the job. This is despite that CBI has been empowered to apprehend and prosecute wildlife offenders.

BHUBANESWAR: In a significant breakthrough in elephant poaching case, the Similipal Tiger Reserve (STR) and Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) joint team on Monday arrested four persons, including the kingpin, for their involvement in the jumbo killings.
The team arrested the kingpin, Mohan Majhi, his two associates and Sarfaraz, who acted as middleman. They were rounded up from Bakula, a peripheral village of STR.

BHUBANESWAR: The Similipal Tiger Reserve (STR) authorities have sought the help of Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) to track those behind the latest elephant poaching in the national park.

ALWAR/JAIPUR: The state forest department, in a move to safeguard wild animals, will form protection groups comprising villagers living in the core areas of forests. The project will first be carried out with the help of villagers living near the Sariska tiger reserve.

BHUBANESWAR: Though elephants are getting increasingly electrocuted in the State, thanks to leaning poles and shagging supply lines, the Energy Department seems to have given up. Reason: Funds shortage.

Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh is to write to his civil aviation counterpart about private airlines being used for smuggling wildlife products.

Jairam Ramesh He said he

Priscilla Jebaraj

NEW DELHI: It was labelled as a rug, being sent from the United States to India through the U.S. Postal Service. But when the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) officials opened the parcel at Kolkata's Foreign Post Office on August 7 they discovered the full skin of what is suspected to be a puma.

     
The minister of environment and forest (MoEF) plans to expand the activities of the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau to ensure that the present judicial system is made more sensitive to wildlife crimes.

KOLKATA, 16 JULY: While wildlife wing officials of the Forest Department are unsure of the status of threatened wildlife species, hundreds of rare birds are being sold at a fair, currently in progress at the Ramleela Maidan in Moulali (in SNS photo).

Hyderabad, June 30: The Union ministry of environment and forests has proposed severe penalties for wildlife offenders making almost all the offences under the Wildlife Protection Act non-bailable and imposing a punishment of not less than five to seven years