Programs

     

    Prevention of Poaching of Wild Animals with Community Participation Program

    Poaching of small fauna have been a cause of concern for Wild Orissa since 1997 and the Prevention of Poaching of Wild Animals with Community Participation Program was launched that year. Aware that this nemesis was like a festering wound in most natural areas in the country it was realized that without ensuring the involvement of local inhabitants as well as hunters this could not continue. Direct intervention to combat the menace of poaching and hunting with the participation of the local communities has now become a trademark expertise of Wild Orissa.

    It was early in Wild Orissa’s history, 1999, that success was enacted at village Chandeswar located in Khurda district of Orissa when 20 hunters turned at a public function organized by Wild Orissa to surrender their hunting nets, traditionally for generations used for trapping rare wild animals like the Chevrotain or the Indian Mouse Deer, Wild Boars, Muntjacs or Barking Deer, etc, from the nearby forests. This was possible after months of convincing by Wild Orissa. The success was repeated when in the year 2001 another 14 hunters surrendered their poaching nets at a function organized by Wild Orissa at Chandeswar. Further 14 traps made of steel, meant for wild boars, barking deer and hares were also surrendered. Wild Orissa’s success in its anti-poaching program was again showcased in Chandaka Wildlife sanctuary in the year 2001 when due to its efforts 50 hunters from the village of Pithakhia, Andharua, came forward and took an oath in the presence of a Member of Parliament and the local Divisional Forest Officer, to forsake the path of killing wild animals. Since then this exercise has been undertaken in many other villages of Orissa, like Sundarpur, Ghodahada, Remala, etc.