Tiger poaching in India

Tiger poaching in India has seriously impacted the probability of survival of tigers in India.[1] About 3,000 wild tigers now survive compared with 100,000 at the turn of the 20th century. This abrupt decimation in population count was largely due to the slaughter of tigers by colonial and Indian elite, during the British Raj period, and indeed following India's independence.[2] Most of those remaining, about 1,700, are India's Bengal tigers.[3] Project Tiger in India had been hailed as a great success until it was discovered that the initial count of tigers had been seriously flawed.[4]

Most of the tiger parts end up in China.[5] where a single skin can sell for Rs. 6.5 million.[6]

For poachers there has been about a four percent conviction rate.[7]

Sansar Chand, the notorious Tiger poacher acknowledged to selling 470 tiger skins and 2,130 leopard skins to just four clients from Nepal and Tibet.[8]

Sansar Chand

Sansar Chand, from the Thanagazi area of Alwar district, had been termed "the kingpin running the country’s biggest wildlife trade syndicate".[9] He stayed in the trade without getting arrested for 40 years. He ran his business from Delhi's Sadar Bazar. He was called "Veerappan of the North".[10]

He is blamed for wiping out the entire tiger population of Sariska Tiger Reserve in 2005 [11]

In 1991, a group arrested in Sawai Madhopur in Rajasthan confessed that they had poached 15 to 18 tigers in just two years for him. In January 2005, a raid at Chand's godown in Patel Nagar led to finding of two tiger skins, 28 leopard skins, 14 tiger canines, three kg of tiger claws, 10 tiger jaws and 60 kg of leopard and tiger paws. In 1988, police had seized 25,800 snake skins from him.[12] Sansar Chand's wife Rani and son Akash have also been arrested for wild life trafficking.[13]

See also

References
  1. Tiger poaching and trafficking in India: Estimating rates of occurrence and detection over four decades, Koustubh Sharma,Belinda Wright,Tito Joseph,Nitin Desai, Biological Conservation, Elsevier, Volume 179, November 2014, Pages 33–39
  2. http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2014/03/10/a-concise-history-of-tiger-hunting-in-india
  3. Poaching for Chinese Markets Pushes Tigers to the Brink, 12/05/2014
  4. Faulty Counts May Have Hurt India Tigers, Experts Say, Pallava Bagla, National Geographic News, August 7, 2003
  5. INDIA'S HIDDEN TIGER POACHERS, Roads and Kingdoms, Jun 20, 2014
  6. Sansar’s Successors, RAMAN KIRPAL, October 16, 2010
  7. Illegal Tiger Trade: Why Tigers Are Walking Gold, Sharon Guynup in Cat Watch on February 12, 2014
  8. Sansar Chand, notorious tiger poacher, dead TNN | Mar 19, 2014
  9. Wriggling Out Of The Skin, Jay Mazoomdaar, Tehelka, 2013-07-27
  10. Sansar Chand Is India’s Deadliest Poacher. Here Is How He Has Escaped Legal Traps For 40 Years, RAMAN KIRPAL, Tehelka, August 7, 2010,
  11. Sansar Chand, who wiped out Sariska tigers, dies of cancer, Indian Express, March 18, 2014
  12. Poacher Sansar Chand arrested in Delhi, Outlook, JUN 30, 2005
  13. Haider, Tanseem (12 July 2016). "Notorious poacher Sansar Chand's son arrested in Delhi for wildlife trade". India Today. Retrieved 19 October 2017.
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