Wildlife products seized at little shop of horrors

Wildlife products seized at little shop of horrors
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

MARCH 3: The Wildlife Regional Office and the State Forest Department seized banned wildlife products like ivory, crocodile and snake skin bags, antlers of blackbuck and sambhar from VDH Parshuram (Gidwani Exports), a curio shop in Hirachand Valchand Road, near VT. The seized goods include an assortment of artifacts and jewellery carved from ivory, antlers and wild boar tusk, belts, watch straps and bags fashioned from crocodile, snake and monitor lizard skin and sandalwood articles. Most of the animals from which these products have been made, like elephants, blackbucks, sambhar, crocodiles and snakes, enjoy the highest protection under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act (WPA), 1972.

``The commercial display and sale of these products is completely banned under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. Also, the owner does not possess any dealership or ownership certificate,'' points out S K Neeraj, regional deputy director, wildlife preservation. The owner, V K Gidwani, has been booked under Sections 39, 44, 47, 49 and 50 of the WPA under which he could be sentenced to rigorous imprisonment upto seven years and a fine upto Rs 25,000.

``Shockingly, the ivory was on open display in the shop,'' points out Neeraj, adding that the demand for wildlife products has to be curbed if we are to control poaching, which has become a serious problem of late.

The value of the products is yet to be assessed and some of the products will be sent to the Zoological Survey of India in Pune and forensic laboratory in Hyderabad,'' says Neeraj. He adds that most of the cases go undetected and that such seizures are just the tip of a bustling illegal trade. The value of the illegal wildlife trade is estimated to be $ 25 billion worldwide and is second only to arms and narcotics.

A volunteer working undercover to combat wildlife trade points out that Mumbai is one of the biggest exit points of illegal wildlife products. ``The exit point of Wildlife products, including tiger and leopard bones, skins, claws, antlers, ivory, bear bile, from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh is Mumbai. From Mumbai they either go by sea or by air to feed a western market or make their way to the Far East especially Korea, China, Japan,'' he informes.

Agrees Neeraj, ``Mumbai has traditionally been a trading centre for ivory,''he reveals. The ivory comes to Mumbai from Kerala, Jaipur, parts of Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh. He adds that Nagpur is a very important resource centre for wildlife products, since it is goegraphically close to the forest areas of Vidharbha like Chandrapur and Alapali. From Nagpur it is picked up by the major dealers who then either ship it through Mumbai or through Calcutta.

* There are about 20,000 to 25,000 elephants in India, which is about 60 per cent of the population of Asian elephants.
* Poaching has become a very acute problem, the extent of poaching can be judged by the skewed sex ratio. It is estimated that only 1,500 of these elephants are tuskers and in certain parts of Kerala the ratio of male to female elephants is 1:200
* Ivory fetches a very high price in the international market. One kg can fetch upto Rs 25,000.
* In 1997-98, India lost 110 tuskers. In 1998-99 the death toll was 102. These however are only the reported cases. A conservative estimate dervied by experts is that 250 elephants are killed every year for ivory.