On Sunday, the Uttarakhand Forest Department managed a seizure of three bear gall bladders, which commands a price worth more than gold due to its high demand in the oriental medicines. However, a look at the bigger picture seems distressing as with all the focus on tigers, the bear population is facing a huge threat from poachers.
In 2017, there have been three seizure and a total of nine gall bladders were seized and as per reports the total seizures made in 2016 was nine. “It is the bile produced by the gall bladder of the bears that the poachers are behind as it is in extremely high demand in China for oriental medicines. A lot of the population of bears found in South East Asia have now been wiped out due to extensive poaching and now Indian bears are the target,” shared Dr Shekhar Kumar Niraj, former head of TRAFFIC India- a wildlife trade monitoring network.
Expressing his concerns he said that many believe that the high altitude habitats were safe and no poaching occurred there but as per the inputs they have gathered its these areas that were fast becoming the most preferred hunting grounds for the poachers. “The Himalayan black bear and the brown bears are facing the biggest threat from poachers due to scanty presence of the wildlife enforcement officials as well as lack of intelligence network in these higher altitude areas,” he said adding that it was time that the wildlife department begins co-ordinating with the army as well as other para military forces and conduct joint training programmes to crack a whip on the poaching network.
According to sources the gall bladder is sold just like gold. “Its cost is far more than gold and is sold on the basis of tola (10 gramms is 1tola). The entire operation is carried out involving a local who locates the movement of bear and the poachers hunt it down and the parts are passed on through a series of middle men and taken to China through different route and being such a small thing its not easy to detect it too,” said the source.
Tito Joseph, Programme Manager, Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) said that their own statistics since 2005 indicated that bears were being poached across several states including Assam, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and others, which showed that the cartels are active all over the country and it was high time forest department was more vigilant about it. “In 2015, while there were seizures of body parts of bears from few states there was no gall bladder seizure reported but in 2016 there were a total of nine seizures of gall bladder of which eight were from Uttarakhand while one was from West Bengal and now in 2017 within just five months there have been nine seizures,” he said adding that it only showed how alarming the issue had become.
Dr Dhananjay Mohan, Additional PCCF, Wildlife, Uttarakhand said that the forest department was vigilant and it was difficult to co-relate that more seizures meant that the poaching had increased. “Two people have been arrested on Sunday and booked under the Wildlife Protection Act and further investigations is being conducted to ensure that there is conviction in this case,” he said.
