New Delhi: Wildlife crime is a serious issue involving lives of wild animals and subsequent efforts by law enforcement authorities to nail the poacher and the trader. Even so, there are incidents with an element of dark humour that is difficult to not notice.

Two such incidents occurred last week.

In the first, a person is apprehended in Jodhpur on grounds of suspicious movement. Upon investigation, a leopard skin is recovered from his possession. When questioned, he claims – much to the amusement of the investigating authority – he is ‘just’ a burglar and as the house he last broke into did not have any other article of value, he picked up the skin hoping it would be valuable. Well… it is for him… a ‘valuable’ lesson.

A second leopard skin is recovered from him following further interrogation. Search is on for the house owner; and perhaps for the first time in the history of burgle-dom, a victim of theft will not present himself voluntarily to claim the recovered items.

In the second incident, a wildlife investigator is in Uttarakhand to verify information on wildlife articles on sale. On his way, he stops at a tea stall… obviously for tea. But the stall owner had more than tea to offer apparently.

He approaches the investigator, “You want ‘maal’?” referring to wildlife articles.

Of course, he wants maal! Only, he was not aware that it is served with tea here. Or he’d be spending his time hopping stalls and sipping tea rather than chasing wildlife criminals.

Two leopard skins are displayed. Authorities are called in. Seizure is made. Stall owner is booked for serving wildlife articles with tea.

The investigator moves on about his work and assists in the seizure of another leopard skin and two packets of bear bile, which is when these incidents stop being amusing. Three leopard skin and two bear bile packets! All seized in a matter of a few days from a small region of a single state.

The illegal wildlife trade industry is believed to have an annual turnover of about ten billion dollars. This will decrease eventually, no doubt, but the question is when. Will it decrease once our natural heritage is wiped out so that it is no longer able to generate this kind of revenue? Or will it decrease when protection is ensured through efficient enforcement and participation of the masses?  How ideal it would be if it were the latter.

Every conservationist and a lay man interested in wildlife acknowledge the threats to it. However, we’ve not hit the spot yet, when it comes to finding solutions.

Wildlife conservation will never be successful without involving the people at the grassroots level. Hoardings screaming hoarse in cities that tigers are dying out, is good… but not good enough.

Enforcement enhancement training to strengthen cross border cooperation to control wildlife trade is necessary, but clearly not enough. Both seizures in Uttarakhand were close to the Indo-Nepal border, most likely for export abroad.

Perhaps, you are now expecting me to suggest a solution. You’ll not find it here. If I had one, I wouldn’t be sitting around writing this article – criticising those who have been trying but not succeeding enough,-…but implementing it instead.

Yet, if I were to think aloud, it seems to me that the solution is ‘unity’. Clichéd, unrealistic, utopic, imaginary, naïve are the words that immediately batter my thoughts, chide me and make me blush.

However, in my defense, I did not mean to say that we should get the thief in Rajasthan and the tea vendor in Uttarakhand to join us against wildlife trade. We should if we can.

But, maybe I should have been clearer. I should have perhaps said that people who care are far-far-fewer than those who don’t, for the former to be divided.

Unfortunately, our opponents understand this better than us. How else would an animal killed in one corner of India reach the other and then to one neighbouring country and then to another? How else would they be able to generate ten billion dollars a year and we struggle to make even a few millions?