Villagers around the Kawal Tiger Reserve in Telangana State live in fear of one animal – Cheetah. They know that if he gets their scent, no poacher is safe until he is nabbed by the forest department. Cheetah is none other than a German Shepard who is part of the wildlife dog squad deployed in Jannaram division of the Kawal reserve since December 2018.
The Kawal Tiger Reserve is spread over 983 sq km of core and 1,123 sq km of buffer across Adilabad, Kumram Bheem Asifabad, Mancherial and Nirmal districts. Being an open forest, poachers and wildlife offenders found it easy at one time, to escape forest guard patrols, and leave with their loot. In Jannaram division alone over 900 offences of different kind were reported since 2016.
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Not anymore.
Cheetah’s presence in the elite force has made it consistently difficult for offenders to get away. Even if they run away from the forest, the scent trails they leave, is helping Cheetah track them, right to their homes!
“‘Cheetah’ has given us many surprises. In two cases where leopards were killed, it took us directly to the house of the poachers. We didn’t expect this and were surprised.” tells Field director, C.P. Vinod Kumar to Deccan Chronicle
He adds, “We have issued a timetable to inspect the villages and to check the village markets on the fringes of the forest. Now the poachers and villagers are aware that the dog will find them for sure if any wild animal is poached. This dog is really serving the department a lot.”
Cheetah joined the forest force after completing a nine months training course at National Training Centre for Dogs, a Border Security Force Academy, located at Tekanpur in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. His handler J. Satyanarayana was confident that Cheetah would be an asset, right from the day he was brought in.
“Under ideal circumstances, which has the temperatures ranging between 30 degree C to 35 degree C, Cheetah will pick up the scent at the scene of offence and track down the offenders.”
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Cheetah is not the only star canine in the squad though.
Dolly, a German Shepard at Atmakur division of Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam tiger reserve in Andhra Pradesh became part of the force in October 2016.
Since then, she has helped solve a record 15 cases include seizure of wild boar meat, spotted deer and sambar meat, sloth bear carcass, the flesh of a jungle cat and also helped forest officials in a tiger death case in a train accident.
Then there is Quarmy, the canine star of the Kaziranga national park in Assam.
Three-year-old German Shepherd Quarmy recently bagged the title ‘canine for felines’ for contributing towards curbing wildlife crimes related to wild cats in India.
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News 18 retells story of her first operation. She was only 14 months old and barely a week into her deployment, when Quarmy was made to assist a team of forest officials on a search operation in December 2017. The operation was led by Range Officer Pranjal Baruah of the Northern Range to the interiors of Panpur Reserve Forest.
The team had information about poachers trying to target a rhino in the area. Quarmy and her two handlers, Lakhi Nandan Baruah and Johnson Teron, set out on their first mission. A suspect, Gyan Das, was not present when the dog squad reached his house.
After trailing him for almost two hours, Quarmy took her team to a pond. The dog pointed to her handler about something inside waist-deep water. A search was initiated and within few minutes, a .303 rifle and a silencer were recovered from the bottom of the pond.
The next day, Das was arrested from Simaluguri village of Biswanath district. Quarmy easily sniffed out the suspect during identification.
Like Quarmy, Cheetah and Dolly, about 66 dogs have been trained and deployed by Traffic India, the wildlife trade monitoring network, since 2008 in various national parks and sanctuaries of India with help from BSF in providing training to these dogs.
Senior project officer, Traffic India, Amar Nath Choudhary said, “We train the dogs for nine months in three phases. In the first phase, they are provided basic training and taught discipline. In the second phase, they are trained on sniffing, searching and tracking. The final stage of training is on perfection.”
The dog squad is not only helping solve wildlife crimes but also garnering respect from locals. Poachers live in fear of the sniffer dogs that can track them wherever they go. In the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana alone the dog squads have helped solve 31 cases in the past few months. In Karnataka, Chatri a Doberman and Bruno, a Golden retriever are tracing the smuggling of precious sandalwood making it difficult everyday for the offenders to escape with timber and sandalwood.
As illegal wildlife trade continues to evolve as an organized crime, India needs to strengthen its force in every way possible to curb the illicit motives of these criminals. The canine squad for sure is proving to be man’s best friend as protectors of wildlife too.
