Wednesday turned out to be a lucky day for 734 Star tortoises from the city, who after making a 24-hour-long road journey, reached Bengaluru's Bannergatta National park and were released in their natural habitat.
Of the 723 Star tortoises, 523 were seized on September 6 in one of the biggest joint operations in the city in recent times, carried out by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) and the Thane forest department. The rest were also seized from illegal wildlife trade.
It was a six-member team including forester Sameer Inamdar, Manoj Pardeshi from Thane territorial division along with Pawan Sharma, Founder of NGO Resqink Association for Wildlife Welfare (RAWW) and Honorary Wildlife Warden for Thane. They took the tortoises, which were comfortably placed in different plastic containers and left for Bengaluru in an ambulance on Tuesday at around 7am.
"We did not want these 523 tortoises that were captured from the wild to end up suffering 'official captivity' and hence we decided to fast-track the repatriation procedure and even Thane forest department quickly wrote to their counterparts in Karnataka who responded without delay making this possible," said Sharma.
Preparing for the road journey was not an easy task because of the sheer number of the star tortoises. "With help of the forest department staff we had made batches of these tortoises as soon as they were seized and teams of volunteers worked in shifts to ensure they were in hygienic condition. As soon as we got a green signal for repatriation, we bought plastic containers that were airy and in small batches we placed them and transported them," said Sharma adding that during the road journey they took around seven to eight breaks and kept monitoring all the tortoises.
As per the team, all the tortoises were released into their natural habitat on Wednesday by 2.30pm, and all of them began nibbling the grass and moving around quickly. There was no mortality.
Know more about Star Tortoises
- They are species protected under the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972
- Are the most popular, and the most selling tortoises in the illegal pet markets of city
- Are caught from the wild and traded as there are myths that they bring good fortune and are auspicious
