Tiger poachers caught in Pilibhit with tiger body parts

#pilibhit #tiger #poacher Tiger poachers are active in Pilibhit. Based on reports, a team of Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) New Delhi, Pilibhit forest department and special task force has arrested eight poachers. They were in possession of tiger body parts like tiger meat, bones, and teeth.
Four of their accomplices still on the run and police are trying to nab them. These arrests have come after two poachers from Uttar Pradesh had been arrested in Nepal – they had with them 37-Kg of tiger bones and skin and, on interrogation, had confessed to have poached tigers in Pilibhit. As per Kailesh Prakash, divisional forest officer, Pilibhit tiger reserve (PTR), the police in Nepal had informed that the poachers had killed two adult tigers in November and December 2013 in Barahi range of PTR. They had made use of poisoned buffalo meat as bait to trap the big cats.
The team has also seized other material from these two – they had with them 5-Kg of tiger bones, teeth apart from antlers of swamp deer.
Pilibhit is on the border with Nepal and, hence, the reserve is not safe for the big cats - in the 2014 tiger census report, the Pilibhit tiger reserve has shown "improvement". As per the count of 2011, there were 35 to 40 tigers. However, encroachment of humans and proximity to Nepal has made it dangerous for the tigers.
In May 2012, two tigers were poisoned there within 24 hours and, in February 2009, a young tigress was shot down by forest department in Faizabad because it had strayed out of the forests and turned into a man-eater.