Gurgaon gets 11-member wildlife protection force

The forest department on Friday formed a team for protecting wild animals from poachers in Aravallis. The development comes a day after the environment activists met Union environment minister Dr Harsh Vardhan in New Delhi and urged him to form a special task force to curtail poaching and illegal tree felling in the eco-sensitive areas of Aravallis.

The team, comprises of six wildlife and five forest officers, will monitor and patrol the Aravalli villages where poaching is most often reported from.

“Apart from the 11 officers, five wildlife protection watchers will be also be a part of this team. Today, our team conducted patrolling at Ghata, Kadipur and Badshahpur areas,” South Haryana conservator of forest D Hembram said.

He added that the team is investigating the case where peacocks were caught in metal traps. “Our teams will also visit the areas where possibilities of wildlife poaching is high. We suspect these animals are trapped here and transported to some other place,” he said.

This decision to create the wildlife protection team came after 15 environmentalists met Dr Vardhan on Thursday and appealed him to take action to protect the Aravalli ecosystem.

The letter by environmentalists to the Union minister read: “There is a dire need to form a task force to keep tab on the illegal activities in the forest area. We would request you to kindly instruct the concerned authorities and the state government to check the forest area frequently to curb illegal felling of trees & construction of structures. The animal poachers must be nabbed & punished severely else the norm would be followed by others also fearlessly. And, surely, Haryana govt. has a certain outlay earmarked only for Aravallis protection, then why aren’t the funds being utilised?”

The activists told the Hindustan Times that the Union environment minister had assured them he would take action against the people involved in wildlife poaching.

“We have witnessed rampant destruction of the Aravalli forest areas and now the wildlife is also being targeted,” environmentalist Vaishali Rana Chandra said.

Records show that no cases of poaching have been registered in Gurgaon for the past two years despite residents and activists filing police complaints, submitting evidence and even writing to the state government in this regard.