Blog: . Lack of records

Wildlife Conservation Nepal (WCN), which has been involved in undercover operations to identify poachers and wildlife traffickers, said it has records of an incident that took place in April 2006.
“Three people with two tiger skins and three leopard pelts were caught by locals in the southern town of Birgunj, bordering India,” said Prasanna Yonjan, the head of WCN.
“The three were then handed over to the Maoists’ People’s Liberation Army, which seized the wildlife contrabands from them but has never returned them to the government.”
Mr Yonjan added that the three traffickers were freed after lobbying by a poacher who himself was later arrested.
Another conservationist working for an international organisation in western Nepal said two people that were caught with tiger bones were taken away by Maoists in June 2004.
“The two, one of them a retired policeman, were taken to the mountain district Jumla by the Maoists,” the conservationist added.
“The Maoists later freed the two but the tiger bones were never returned.”
The Bardia incident was confirmed by a Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation official, who asked not to be named.
“Many such incidents took place during the 10-year conflict,” said Mangal Man Shakya, head of Wildlife Watch Group, an organisation affiliated to the World Conservation Union (IUCN).
“But the Maoists have never returned to the state the wildlife products they had seized.
“We have been asking the Maoist leaders to do so but there has been no response.”