Snaring crisis haunts India’s wildlife!
Traps and snares are widely deployed by poachers to catch wild animals including tiger, leopard, deer, antelopes, birds, pangolins, bears, hares etc. to satisfy the local and international demand for wildlife products and their derivatives. Prepared using locally available material(s), these traps and snares are relatively inexpensive and easy to assemble in high quantities, making them as one of the easiest, yet most efficient and lethal hunting tools. This is a global problem, impacting already precarious population of wild animals.
“Over 700 mammalian species of Southeast Asia are negatively affected by ensnaring, including some of the most iconic and charismatic populations of species like tigers, elephants, rhinoceros, and bears”
-WWF report “Silence of the Snares: Southeast Asia’s Snaring Crisis
- Snaring often goes undetected and leads to an unaccounted loss of wild animals.
- Often untargeted wildlife species get trapped and killed.
- Risk of zoonotic diseases is high due to close connection between trappers and wild animals.
- Extremely difficult to detect when used in forest.
Deep Search Metal Detectors (DSMDs) help in detecting hidden and buried pieces of metal. These equipment thus are extremely effective in locating hidden/buried metal traps and snares, which are deployed by wildlife poachers. Such snares/traps are often hidden in debris making their detection through manual patrolling almost impossible. DSMDs can locate the snares during routine patrolling or during targeted scanning of an area.
In some cases, DSMDs are also used during the post-mortem examinations to locate a bullet if the animal is killed by shooting.
TRAFFIC under its various programmes has distributed DSMDs to law enforcement agencies to popularize their use, and has also conducted specialised training of law enforcement officials on their application for wildlife crime investigation.
TRAFFIC under its various programmes has distributed DSMDs to law enforcement agencies to popularize their use, and has also conducted specialised training of law enforcement officials on their application for wildlife crime investigation.
“DSMDs are an ideal tool to accompany during anti-poaching/ anti-snaring patrol. They are robust and simple to use, and help in detecting traps/snares, wires, and other metal devices buried underground or hidden in a bush, that are difficult to detect by naked eyes of a patrolling staff.”
Dr Saket Badola, IFS; Head; TRAFFIC, India Office