The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) on Saturday nabbed three poachers with iron traps in Panna Tiger Reserve. All three belonged to the Pardhi community. “These people had come from Maharashtra and would have tried to trap a tiger or a deer,” said a WCCB official. There are currently two tigresses in Panna, both have been relocated there from neighbouring reserves. “A lot of poaching takes place during the post monsoon-pre Diwali period,” said the WCCB official.

During their raids last week, the WCCB and state forest department have recovered leopard skins, bear bile, cobra belts, monitor lizard skins from various locations, including tourist spots.

On Saturday, an operation, jointly conducted by the WCCB and the Uttarakhand Special Task Force, led to the arrest of two people in Vikasnagar near Dehrudun. Two leopard skins and one sloth bear bile piece (considered an aphrodisiac) were recovered from the place that is on the international poaching trade route.

An NGO, Wildlife SOS and Chhattisgarh forest department officials recently seized a leopard skin in Kanker district in the state.

In another seizure in Matheran, where illegal wildlife contraband was being peddled as tourist curio, the WCCB seized 72 monitor lizard skins, four purses made out of Cobra skins and 29 wallets which are suspected to be made of skin of protected reptiles.