2 more sniffer dogs to guard rhino

Manoj AnandGuwahati: Bogged down by poaching threat, the wildlife authorities in Kaziranga National Park have embarked upon ambitious plan of taking help of sniffer dogs — Kareena and Babli to combat poachers who silently enter the park to kill precious one-horn rhinos for its horn. The park authorities had started this experiment with Jorba, the lone sniffer dog deployed to keep a watch on poachers. The success of Jorba in keeping surveillance has encouraged park authorities to induct two more sniffer dogs for Jorba’s company. The head of wildlife trade monitoring network Shekhar Kumar Niraj said that after a month of training in anti-poaching operations, Kareena, a German shepherd and Babli of Belgian Shepherd species have been inducted. He said, “Dogs have proved to be very effective in anti-poaching operations. Our forests need a good number of these canines. They give us very vital clues, even trace poachers or wildlife articles after the crime has been committed.” In fact experiment with canine detective had started way back in 2013 itself in Kaziranga National Park when park authorities imported Jorba from Slovakia with the help of Aranyak, wildlife NGO. Since then the five-year-old dog has led to more than 10 arrests and officials claim its success ratio was more than 60 per cent. The park director M.K. Yadava said, “We are very happy with the experience. They were successful in 60 per cent of the cases. Sometimes difficult terrain and rainy weather limits their efficiency.” Pointing out that any object left at the crime scene by the poacher or even his footprint becomes a tool for the dog to trace him with the power of its nose, park authorities informed that in May 2014, a poacher was tracked by Jorba for 1.5 km. Source: The Asian AgeReference:Image: https://flickr.com