With illegal wildlife trade going more organised and threatening the survival of many species in the country, several States have decided to add more sniffer dogs in their brigade to bust poaching and smuggling cases. The country's wildlife sniffer dog brigade will get a major boost with the addition of 14 new dogs and 28 handlers.
According to sources in Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB), under Ministry of Environment, the Forest Departments of Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand and Karnataka will add on to their sniffer brigade this year. The dogs have been procured and are being trained under sniffer dog training programme of TRAFFIC India, at the Dog Training Centre, 23rd Battalion of Special Armed Forces, Bhopal.
"India's wildlife is under grave danger from the ever increasing illegal wildlife trade and sniffer dogs have been playing a huge role in wildlife investigation and prosecution," said Shekhar Kumar Niraj, head of TRAFFIC, India
He said poachers and traders were employing new tools and technologies to expand their network which was proving to be a major challenge for the forest department and other enforcement agencies. "Use of sniffer dogs for wildlife crime prevention and detection has been employed as an effective tool and TRAFFIC has had experience in handling this in many countries across the globe," he said.
The sources in WCCB informed that despite country's huge forest cover there are only 12 trained sniffer dogs and another 14 in training.
According to them, deployment of at least four to five dogs is being planned in each state in the next few years for boosting wildlife conservation and protection efforts. Even though trained for sniffing out products such as tiger, leopard bones, skins and bear bile, these sniffer dogs are also detecting other wildlife contraband such as ivory, deer meat, live bird species, Red Sand, blackbuck, rat, python, hare, snake, porcupine and even weapons.
The sources said that the twelve sniffer dogs- German Shepherds-attached to the forest departments of Haryana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand have set examples in prevention of wildlife crime and detection in the country.
According to TRAFFIC Head, these dogs have led to nearly 80 wildlife seizures in recent years.
One of TRAFFIC's sniffer dogs was even accorded a Certificate of Merit by the Madhya Pradesh Governor in 2013.Jimmy has helped bust at least 25 wildlife poaching and smuggling cases, he said.