While some villagers in Kadi and Visatpura in the Mehsana district swear that the black bucks are being killed by giving them pesticides sprinkled on chappatis with ghee, forest officials deny ``such an atrocious'' thing is happening, dismissing them as rumours.

But harried farmers told The Indian Express, ``forest officials get a salary from the government, do we? We have to depend on our crops. How long can we allow the kadiyaals to play havoc with our lives. Already our youth have left for cities, mills have shut down. We had to do something.''

The villagers have a point there. For all the Forest Department's commitment to solving the problem, their first tentative effort failed to bear fruit. While on the one hand, the six black bucks caught by the department -- out of the targeted 50 -- have all died, on the other, the government has given the go-ahead for trapping just 500 black bucks. That leaves an enormous 6,500 black bucks still on the prowl.

Says V N Mori, the man who initially saved 20 black bucks from hunters way back in 1975 and the present honorary wild life warden at Visatpura,``we are ready to do anything. Two months ago we had sent an application to the government asking them permission to let us shoot the black bucks, but nothing has come of it. It seems the kadiyaals are more important to the Government. Yeh desh kisan ka nahin kadiyal ka hai.''

Meanwhile, the death of the black bucks in captivity has added another twist to the translocation tale. H.S. Singh, director, Gujarat Ecological Education and Research Foundation (GEER), says he will be submitting a report to the government on the black bucks' death. The animals, sensitive to even human touch, died within ten days of captivity due to shock and injury.

Forest officials who conducted an urgent meeting on March 6 in Gandhinagar on the future course of action are tight-lipped as to what actually transpired in the meeting. ``As of now we want to keep it a secret,'' said an official requesting anonymity. And all that forest conservator A.K. Saxena (Mehsana circle) divulges is the fact that the ``process is going to continue but the methods will be changed.''

In between all this, concerned villagers have come up with their own suggestions.

Mujahid Malik says the animals should be shifted to the Little Rann of Kutch which was their historical habitat and closer to Kadi than any other sanctuary, Sarfaraj Malik says that a few cautious steps taken by the authorities would help reduce the mortality rate.

Sarfaraz, who in 1974 worked as special assistant to Reuben David, founder of the Kankaria zoo here, says it is imperative that professional animal trappers, along with zoo authorities should be involved in the project. Moreover, the animals should be blindfolded and shifted only during the night. Also, they should be released as soon as possible and not kept in captivity.

Or perhaps they could replicate the experiment of the Americans, who in 1930 took some black bucks from India, and today after ensuring a healthy population allow the animals to be shot, of course, for an astronomical amount of $ 2,000 per animal.

And though Saxena puts all the blame at the door of humans ``who are encroaching on animal territory,'' an angry Dalsukhbhai Panaji Das, sarpanch of Ranchodpura in Kadi taluka, will have nothing of it.

``The least the government can do is to ensure that we don't join the kadiyaals in Schedule 1 of the endangered species list,'' he fumes.