Officials of Palamu Tiger Reserve are gearing up to contain the poaching of deers and wild boars looking at winter picnic season ahead. The ten-day long year end comes as double whammy for the forest officials when around Christmas and New Year the villages falling in and around PTR tend to poach deers and wild boars.
“The recently concluded panchayat poll is also a cause of worry. Victory time is poaching time. It is a hard time to check the poaching of deers and othe wild animals at PTR. People in villages and panchayats are in boisterous mood. Then great festival Xmas is coming. Poaching is the most feared thing now,” said DS Srivastava, member of the Jharkhand State Wild life Board.
Palamu Tiger Reserve has a total of 199 villages. Three of them are in the core area. These villages are Ramandag, Kujrum and latu. 161 villages are right inside the PTR. 35 villages are just outside the PTR. Poll results are to affect each of these villages since there comes a ward member in a village. And villagers quite feverishly seek feast from the victor ward member or mukhiya or from panchayat samiti member etc. Sources said the people often finding goat too costly that may cost over `4,000 to `5,000, the wild animals roaming around become easy prey for them despite the tight vigil.
He also reminded, “Fear of poaching gets high in other two festivals namely Holi and Dussehra. Many ground staff go on leave then. With bare minimum hands PTR is patrolled. And during these two festivals people want to have their mouthful of deer or wild boar meat.” Srivastava who runs an NGO Nature Conservation Society, has engaged a batch 10 youths five of them girls to move around villages asking people not to poach deer or wild boar.
However he said that he is not himself sure if it will have any remarkable impact. “People take poaching as a sort of adventure. It requires four men to carry a poached deer of 15 to 18 Kg weight. These four carry the poached deer while two or three more keep vigil and speed fast on sighting any PTR patrol party.”