Star tortoises at Nagaland Zoological Park.
Jorhat, Aug 4 : The Wildlife Trust of India has the daunting task of finding the home of 62 star tortoises that were seized at Dimapur railway station last month.
A team from the WTI will collect blood and
tissue samples of the tortoises, now kept at the zoo in Dimapur to
ascertain their place of origin.
“The blood and tissue samples are
necessary to ascertain the location from where these tortoises
originated. By ascertaining to which sub-species they belong, we can
subsequently release these tortoises in the particular location or at
least near it,” N.V.K. Ashraf, the chief of conservation of WTI, told
The Telegraph today.
Ashraf said the Indian star tortoise (Geochelone elegans)
is a species found in dry forest areas in the northwest and
southeastern regions of the country and is quite popular in exotic pet
trade across the world.
“Thanks to the distinctively-marked and
highly-rounded shell, this species has become popular in the world’s pet
trade,” he said.
Indian star tortoises are medium sized, with the average adult rarely growing to more than 30cm in length.
The trade in star tortoises has been
banned under the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species
(CITES) of Wild fauna and flora. The species is also protected under
Schedule IV of the Wildlife Protection Act 1972, which bans its
possession and trade.
The consignment of 62 tortoises was found concealed under fruits in two crates parcelled from New Delhi on July 12.
Sources said one of the tortoises managed
to sneak out of the packet, which attracted the attention of railway
officials. Subsequently, the wildlife crime control bureau seized the
two packets.
The principal chief conservator of
forests, Nagaland, M. Lokeswara Rao, said all the 62 tortoises were
alive and being kept at a special enclosure at Nagaland zoological park.
He said WTI had sought permission from the
forest department to collect blood and tissue samples of the tortoises
to ascertain the location from where they originated.
“We have given them permission,” he said.
He said this was the first time that star
tortoises, which are found in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil
Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka, were seized in Nagaland.
Rao said a telephone number and an address
were mentioned in the two packets but there was no reply on the
particular telephone number.
“The address was also fake,” he added.
An official of the Wildlife Crime Control
Bureau told The Telegraph that the haul has established the fact that
Dimapur is used as a transit route to smuggle star tortoises to
Southeast Asian countries.
“The porous international border in
Manipur is being used to smuggle these star tortoises. We are probing
the incident,” he said.
The ministry of home affairs has said the
porosity of the 1,643km India-Myanmar border facilitates cross-border
movement of militants, illegal arms and drugs. “The border
(Indo-Myanmar) permits free movement regime up to 16km across the
border. This makes the International border extremely porous. The border
runs along hilly and inhospitable terrain, which grossly lacks basic
infrastructure and provides cover to the activities of various insurgent
groups and smugglers,” a ministry of home affairs report had said
recently.
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