Kaziranga loses 10 tigers

Trail of tiger deaths

Minor arrested

Poachers' threat to bird paradise MIGRATORY birds that have flocked to their winter home in Lake Chilika in Orissa are under threat from poachers.

Rhino demoted

From endangered to vulnerable THE International Union for Conservation of Nature or iucn has lowered the threat level of the Indian one-horned rhinoceros from endangered to vulnerable. This has not gone down well with conservationists in India who contend rhinos are extremely

In court

State's prerogative: A division bench of the Bombay High Court on October 22 observed that the state government has the power to change a green zone into an industrial area. The court was hearing a PIL filed by Shetkari Sangarsh Samiti, a farmers' organization based in Shahpur in Maharashtra's Raigad district. The farmers had opposed land acquisition by the state government for the Maharashtra Energy Generation Ltd--a subsidiary of Reliance Energy--that proposes to build a 4,000 mw natural gas and coal-based plant

Demystifying a "legend"

Robin Hood for some and murderer for others--the legend Veerappan is back in the limelight with an exhibition. The city police of Salem in Tamil Nadu have put up a Veerappan stall at the Government Exhibition-2008. There is a distinct self-congratulatory ring to the exhibition.

South Asia

PASHMINA is Kashmiri: India granted, on September 12, the Geographical Indicat-ion (GI) status to Pashmina yarn, produced in th Kashmir valley by Tahfuz (a body of all Kashmiri handicraft artisans). Islamabad filed an objection claiming that the fine wool is also produced in Pakistan. A consultative committee of the Geographical Indication Registry of India rejected Pakistan's objections. A GI status ensures that a name can only be used by produce from a particular geographical region, not anywhere else. Example: Darjeeling tea, Champagne.

Primates losing race

Against habitat loss, hunting and trade

Sunderbans a land in limbo

Tigers attack people. People impatient, they are second priority. What is the way out? July 24, 2007. Hungry and exhausted after fishing all day on the Bidyadhari river, Amirul Naiya, his two brothers and three other fishermen pulled up their country boat into a creek in the dense Sunderbans mangroves, to prepare their dinner. Suddenly, with a blood-curdling roar, a massive beast half-leapt on board and sunk its canines into Naiya's side. Beside him, Manirul, his petrified younger brother, crumpled to a dead faint. The

Misplaced pride

Successful programme to conserve lions is beginning to implode on itself The Asiatic lion is quite vulnerable. "The Gir population is insecure for two reasons," says A J T Johnsingh, a wildlife expert with the Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore. Firstly, "the population has risen from a very low number leading to inbreeding and a genetically homozygous population. Reduced genetic diversity affects reproductive health of the species and increases mortality of the young".

Bare bone structure

Lack of information, coordination and expertise make wildlife crime difficult to curb