Wildlife wing unable to control Bear

Siba Mohanty - BHUBANESWAR | 07th May 2013
The death of eight tribals at the hands of a bear that was later lynched by angry villagers in Kotpad has exposed all that is ailing with Wildlife Wing and  also its callous attitude. The precious lives of the villagers as well as that of the wild animal could have been saved had Koraput Circle, under which Kotpad comes, possessed a tranquilliser gun.

 Even as the crisis broke out on Saturday, the Wildlife officials had no clue how to control the situation as the rabid bear went on attacking residents of villages located in a radius of 5 to 6 km. A tranquilliser team from Bhawanipatna Circle had to be summoned, but by the time it reached on Sunday, it was too late.

 Of the eight Forest Circles in the State, Berhampur and Koraput Circles do not possess tranquilliser guns. On Monday, a day after the shocking incident, the Wildlife Wing woke up to the problem and began measures to address the situation.

 Queer as it may sound, every time such a problem crops up, the Chief Wildlife Warden pulls out the tranquilliser team from Nandankanan Zoological Park since striking teams in other divisions are not in a state of preparedness.

 Interestingly, a bear from Nandankanan Zoo, which escaped from its enclosure about a week back, is yet to be traced. If the animal resurfaces, there will be no expert hand in the zoo to immobilise it immediately. Similarly, if  the wild tiger housed in the zoo’s safari needs urgent tranquillisation, there is none at hand to do the job. And the Wildlife Wing simply does not have a Plan B.

 In fact, Nandankanan, which has men specialised in tranquillisation, has  imparted training to over 100 wildlife personnel in the last three years, but absence of tranquilliser guns has posed a serious problem. Despite the procurement process being time consuming and tedious, barely about half a dozen guns have been procured so far, that too, through the central purchase system of the zoo and supplied to other divisions.

 The guns, which require a technology different from firearms, are imported from Dist Inject, a French company with facilities in Switzerland and Germany.

To purchase the equipment, the zoo has to apply to the Director-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) Office at Cuttack for an import licence. The Centre gives a no- objection certificate (NOC) for the import and seeks a similar certificate from the State Wildlife Wing.

 “Since tranquilliser guns are vulnerable to fall in the hands of terrorists, there is heavy restriction on its procurement and genuineness of use is verified too. Procurement of guns takes anything from six months to one year which is why forest divisions find it hard to go through the elaborate paperwork.

This is precisely the reason why Wildlife Wing should have made the procurements well in advance given the rising man-animal conflict in the State,” said an insider.

Source: http://newindianexpress.com/states/odisha/Wildlife-wing-unable-to-control-Bear/2013/05/07/article1578473.ece