Rustling for hair

THE VICUNA, South America's graceful camelid coveted for its soft, silky hair, is falling prey to well-organised gangs of international rustlers "working for brokers within Latin America who then ship the fibre in bales to Europe and Asia", according to an expert with Conacs, Peru's quasi-government agency for camelids, which is an animal similar to the llama. Five vicunas have to be killed to procure enough yarn to weave a metre of cloth, which fetches between $1,500 and $3,000 in the European or Asian black market.

The rage of humans

Depredating raids by wild elephants into human settlements have often been reported from Assam. But on August 13, the elephants became victims of a totally unprecedented retaliatory strike: Angry villagers poisoned three adult elephants in the vicinity of the Boronodi wildlife sanctuary in the Bodo-dominated Darrang district.

Arab hunting

WEALTHY Arabs, who angered environmentalists in India for hunting the rare Great Indian Bustard, have touched Tanzanian wildlife experts in the raw for allegedly using automatic weapons to mow down buffalo and antelope.

Murder in the sanctuary

AFTER a successful swoop on a dusty April afternoon on some poachers in the Keladevi forests near Ranthambore Tiger Reserve (RTR), a posse of nine forest guards in a Jeep found their way blocked by a log. They got out to clear the road and were ambushed by armed members of the poacher gang.

Cattle slaughter banned

In a ruling that may have far-reaching implications, a Delhi sessions court has banned slaughter of buffalo calves, export of live animals for meat and slaughter of livestock for export as meat. Judge C K Chaturvedi made the ruling on a petition by residents of the north Delhi colony of Narela against acquisition of land by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) for an abattoir (slaughter house). The residents objected to the stench that an abattoir would emit.

Venomous vendetta

IT WAS a strange case of politicians taking out their venom on snakes. Angry CPM workers in Kerala vandalised and set fire to the Parassinikkadavu Snake Park in Kannur. The reason for the wanton destruction of what was one of the finest snake sanctuaries in Asia, was the defeat of the CPM nominees in a recent election to the governing body of the A K G Memorial Cooperative Hospital.