According to a recent study, trying to seek out consumption and native trade has doubled during the lockdown period. A report published by Traffic, a wildlife trade monitoring network in cooperation with WWF India, indicated that despite persistent efforts by enforcement agencies, wild animal populations in India were at “extra threat” during the lockdown period. the biggest increase in illicit hunting is that meat is principally ungulates, and thru the lockdown period it increased from eight to 44 percent of pre-lockdowns by 22 percent.
The second group that showed a serious increase was the predation of “small mammals”, including horses, porcupine pangolins, large squirrels, birds, monkeys, and small wild cats. Although there’s always a high demand for some of the international markets, hunting is usually for meat or local trade during the lockdown period. Between the pre- and lockdown periods, the amount of these cases increased from 17 percent to 25 percent. along with big cats during the lockdown period, there has been an increase in leopard hunting, as nine leopards are killed compared to four within the past. Lockdown duration.
An entire of 222 people were arrested by various enforcement agencies during the nationwide lockdown period, quite the 85 accused arrested at the primary stage of the lockdown. However, wild pet-bird seizure-related incidents fell between 14 percent and 7 percent between lockdown and lockdown periods, due to a scarcity of transportation during the lockdown period and closed markets. Large birds like Indian peacocks and birds just like the grey francolines popular for meat are reported to be targeted during lockdown. There are little reports of illegal and illegal exchange locks and freshwater turtles, with the species almost never captured during the lockout period.
Saket Badola, head of the TRAFFIC’s India office, said: “Hunting and hunting small wild animals for meat undoubtedly places an additional burden on wildlife enforcement agencies. Therefore, it’s imperative that these agencies provide adequate and timely assistance so they’ll control things.”
He said this is often able to cause higher incidence of human-wildlife conflicts and undermine the numerous achievements of India within the sector of wildlife conservation.
