If poaching rings are well known, why can't India bust them?
"Our wildlife enforcement setup is ill-equipped and ill-informed to fight organised wildlife crime," says Wright. "The only type of enforcement that will work is intelligence-led enforcement and this is simply not being done," she adds.
"It's like asking what is wrong with India," says Thapar. "We don't have the right men in the right jobs." He says that in the five-member tiger task force constituted by the prime minister in 2005, three had little or no knowledge about tigers.
"Have forces of 400 men from the armed forces, deploy them in National Parks where poaching is reported, like in Kanha where recently tigers have been reported injured by traps laid by poachers," he says.
"Dramatically improved intelligence-led enforcement and the removal of villages within critical tiger habitats to provide inviolate space for tigers, are probably the two critical issues," says Wright.
"There is also an urgent need for improved infrastructure and training, the filling of vacancies in field staff, improved wildlife management leadership, and motivation and accountability, along with Central and state political support to implement the well-documented problems and recommendations in an effective, and time-bound manner," she adds.
Is India listening?
Photograph: Aditya Singh/AFP/Getty Images
Also read: Rajasthan needs to act fast to save the tiger
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