Four poachers arrested in Simlipal;Ivory seized

Baripada, Oct 13 (UNI) Simlipal Tiger Reserve (STR) officials have arrested four tribal poachers from three villages located inside the reserve last Thursday after a three-day combing operation.

The poachers were identified as Basudev Singh, Mangal Singh, Jitu Singh and Makra Singh and were believed to be involved in the killing of a bull elephant the carcass of which was found on the bank of a hill stream near Digdiga under Pithabata Range of the STR.

According to STR Field Director Debabrata Swain altogether eight pieces of ivory, weighing a little over five kgs, two country-made guns and a bottle of poison were seized from the arrested poachers.

Earlier, the STR authorities had placed a forester and two forest guards under suspension for dereliction of duty and their failure in locating the carcass in time.

Referring to the bottle of poison, Mr Swain said details will be known after investigations were completed.

Conservationists and animal lovers were worried over the risks and vulnerability to which the prime bull elephants, with their prized tusks, are exposed in the Simlipal reserve.

Conservationists have said recorded evidence confirmed that the tribal poachers in Simlipal were accustomed to the use of a deadly poison obtained from a plant called 'aconite', belonging to ''ranunculaceous'' genus.

In the early 1990s,the then Assistant Field Director of the STR, Bitanath Nayak, had confirmed that tribal poachers had smeared sharp blades, fixed to their arrow heads, with this poison and liquidated a Simlipal tusker.

Besides its status as a tiger reserve, Simlipal constitutes part of the Mayurbhanj Elephant Reserve, one of the legally constituted elephant reserves of Orissa where the pachyderms are in peril, the conservationists feared.

UNI XC-DP PL RN1510