Hyderabad: The Telangana forest department’s week-old ‘Catch The Trap’ drive to locate and remove snares and traps laid in the forests to catch wildlife for poaching is yielding shocking results that are indicating the true extent of attempts to poach wild animals and birds in different parts of the state.
Just in the first week since the drive was launched on December 1, officials say they are stunned at the widespread use of such traps by people, particularly in fringe areas of the forests. In the Gudur forest division of Mahbubabad district, forest officials have found hundreds of such snares.
Pictures of the recoveries show a truck load of snares, and officials said when all the seized traps and snares are sent to Hyderabad’s Mahavir Harina Vanasthali deer park in Vanasthalipuram as planned, they could make a shockingly large pile. The wire snares found in Gudur forest division alone weigh some 400 kg, officials said.
Such is the extent of wildlife poaching and trapping that it is possible to ‘place orders’ in Warangal for wild animal meat, particularly that of wild boar, which the poachers would then deliver. The snares discovered so far are typically used to trap wild boar, hares, and other herbivores such as deer, the officials said.
“Wildlife is one very neglected area in Telangana and this has only gotten worse in the last five years. We hope that with this drive, some focus is returned to protecting wildlife in the state,” a senior department official said.
