Fifty years after the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972 came into existence, raising hope that human-animal conflicts would reduce and poachers who were decimating our forest and rivers of their animal…
Chilika Lake in India’s eastern coastal state of Odisha, considered Asia’s largest brackish water lagoon, has recorded an increase in the number of birds including migratory birds besides witnessing two…
It was October 2013. Armed with special permission, researcher Dinal Samarasinghe was peering at preserved animal specimens at Kolkata's Zoological Survey of India. While the ZSI is a repository of…
As India continues the nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, its impact is seen on the wildlife in western Rajasthan. The state has witnessed a rise…
'Jackal horn', locally referred to as siyar singhi, gidar singhi or nari kombu, is considered a lucky charm by some and is used in black magic and astrology. While there…
On March 25, a few hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a country-wide lockdown to tackle the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, forest authorities in Dewas, Madhya Pradesh arrested…
Leaving his stall at the Golbazar Maharajganj Fish Market in Agartala, the vendor headed out toward another shop, a hovel really, tucked between the market’s boundary wall and a stack…
Then a range forest officer with Periyar Tiger Reserve (PTR) in Kerala, Raju K. Francis still remembers that distant afternoon in 1994, when he arrested elusive forest brigand Aruvi from…
On February 5, 2018, rangers at Orang National Park in the northeast Indian state of Assam received multiple phone calls from villagers reporting sightings of a stray rhino. Dawdling and…
The hall at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s residence was filled with a sense of jubilation as he announced the results of the 2018 countrywide tiger estimation on July 29, 2019,…
Samuel K. Wasser, a conservation biologist at the University of Washington in the U.S., has pioneered ways of using DNA from animal faeces to track wildlife poachers and combat wildlife…
Gunshots crack into the air as dusk falls. A young man from Zainakote village in Srinagar district, bumps into two other local youth who are strolling on the eastern shore…
The day was cloudy, mist covered our faces for the most part. The early morning rain had caused the birds to go into temporary hiding, but they were quick to…
It’s a classic case of viewing the glass as half empty or half full. For the third straight year, the number of tiger deaths in India have touched the 100-figure…
With tigers, lions and elephants grabbing the limelight in India’s wildlife conservation sector, other mammals such as leopards usually remain in the shadows. But they face a similar, if not…
Hunters in Assam are helping supply the illegal pangolin trade and new research that probes their motivations might point to measures that can reduce the poaching and sale of the…
In the snowy high mountains of central and south Asia lives the snow leopard. Its grey rosetted fur-coat perfectly camouflages with the craggy hills, enabling it to prey on nimble…
The memorial in the middle of the farm reads: ‘Chetan Dadarao Khobragade. Birth: 8/8/1995. Death: 13/5/2018’. It wasn’t an age to die. It wasn’t a way to die. Death probably…
It’s 5 AM and Officer Zorba is reporting for duty at Kaziranga National Park, the global stronghold of the one-horned rhino (Rhinoceros unicornis) and the epicentre of a fierce battle…
This is the second article in a two-part series on poaching in Jaldapara National Park. In Part One, interviews with former poachers revealed the inner workings of wildlife trafficking in…
