Summary:
CHENNAI: The Tamil month of Aadi (July-August), is a busy time for temples but particularly bad for small mammals such as black-naped hare. Hunted down relentlessly, they end up as lunch in the celebrations.Community hunting is widespread in districts such as Villupuram, Perambalur, Trichy, Dindigul, Theni, Virudhunagar and Tirupur with some villagers in Perambalur district even putting up banners inviting people to join in the hunt.Field operatives of TRAFFIC, wildlife crime prevention wing of World Wide Fund for Nature-India (WWF-I) last week alerted Perambalur forest division officials about mobs entering forests to hunt hares.On last Sunday, a 30-member group managed to sneak into the Krishnapuram reserved forests at Nainarpalayam near Chinna Salem in Villupuram.Tipped off about this, Villupuram district forest officer S Anand and his team rounded up the people and seized the 14 hounds they had brought and the van they came in.The same day, a 30-member group from Karur district entered the Kangeyam forests in Tirupur district and killed 40 black-naped hares by the time forest officials arrested them.The 25 hounds they brought and the vehicle they arrived in were seized as were the dead animals.Cases under Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 for trespassing into forest areas and for poaching wildlife were registered.The hare is not under Schedule I or II of the Wildlife Protection Act, but trapping or killing it in the wild attracts penalty.All the offenders were fined and let off with a warning.The forest department plans to hand over the hounds to animal welfare organizations, but many elders secured by foresters urged them not to do so, saying the youth who bred and trained the canines would be disappointed.But there is a more serious problem.Such hunting, a senior wildlife officer warned, would deprive smaller carnivores such as Indian jackal, Bengal fox and jungle cats of their feed.With no study on the population of hares, this killing spree will create ecological imbalance, he said.Until 2000, Anand said, villagers in several southern districts organised 'nari vettai' (fox hunts), leading to the disappearance of the species.This resulted in the increase in population of wild boar and other smaller mammals that damage vegetables and other crops cultivated by farmers in the districts, Anand said..