thoughts of an ex poacher
I was a poacher and i love animals if that is not a conflict of two interests I do not know what is, My reaons for this statement along with my love for wildlife have always been a reason for conflict inside me. The reason I openly admit to poaching is the fact that old hunters make the best conservationists. Every area that has wildlife has also some of the best trackers and hunters.
The reason most men from villages resort to hunting is for food to a major extent but the number one reason is economics. I do not know what the price of meat is in india today but when I left India it was Rs 130 per kilo. How many villagers could afford that 13 years ago? Very few compare that to the price of a shotgun cartridge and you not only have meat for the family but enough left to sell to the rest of the people.
My reason for hunting/poaching was purely sport. I used to go to the villages befriend the hunters and I killed game with their help, in learning tracking and bushcraft, the result of this was that the local poachers stopped using snares which kill indiscriminately, they stopped using horrendus boobytraps to kill game and I might also add the areas that I hunted did not have any felines present which resulted in a population explosion of herbivores which ruined a lot of crops and to adress the situation the local government did not take any steps.
My suggestion to those who are in a position to do something to is to befriend the local poachers and pay them to help track game for photography. By doing so not only are you providing them with a job you are also giving them a reason to save the animals rather than kill them. The second reason why conservation efforts are useless is that the so called protectors of the wildlife are the ones helping the poachers.
Internatinal Wildlife Crime.
There is another dimension to poaching, one that is a threat not only to wildlife but also to what one can broadly term as ‘ National Security “ . In fact this is what fuels the sustained poaching of a particular species. I am talking about the illegal international wildlife trade.
This is a very high profit venture and as it is illegal and operates across international boarders it has extremely close links and in some cases is one and the same as the illegal international drug, arms market. This market is used by insurgent/terrorist/rouge nations etc to fund their bloody wars, struggles or what ever you may chose to call them depending on your political affiliations.
I know from personal experience in the duars , the links between wildlife crime, drug , liquor ,gunrunning ,insurgents and also the supply of young women for prostitution .Put simply it is the same people who control the lot.
This aspect has not received the attention it deserves from both the chattering public and the law enforcement agencies in India.
It is high time that we have a federal agency to tackle wildlife crime.