GUWAHATI: Even as the increasing trend of wildlife crime is becoming a cause of concern in this part of the country, Assam Forest Department in collaboration with a couple of top-bracket NGOs working for conservation of wildlife have organised a training programme in Biswanath Ghat in North Assam to sensitise wildlife field staff about efficient handling of wildlife crime cases.
Biswanath Wildlife Division of Assam Forest Department in support of International Rhino Foundation and Aranyak, a biodiversity conservation and research organisation based in Guwahati, have organised a three-day training programme to strengthen capacity of wildlife staff in dealing wildlife crime at Biswanath Ghat. Selected staff of Central Range, Crime Investigation Range of Kaziranga National Park and Biswanath Wildlife Division took part in the programme on Saturday.
The training is meant for the frontline forest staffs of rhino bearing areas in Assam. The training workshops are supported by the Oak Foundation.
Only eleven staff will be imparted closed door and field training during these three days. In next phase, the training will cover field staff of Eastern and Western Range will be completed.
Mukut Das, DFO, Biswanath Wildlife Division, Biswanath Chariali, Pranjal Barua, Range Officer Central and Crime Investigation Range were present in the first day of the training programme which was also attended among others by Rahul Dutta, the Wildlife Trade Monitoring Consultant of International Rhino Foundation (IRF).
Attending the first-day training, Bibhab Talukdar, CEO of Aaranyak and also Asia Coordinator of International Rhino Foundation, announced to provide one sniffer dog for Northern Division of Kaziranga National Park (KNP) for tackling wildlife crimes especially rhino poaching. It may be mentioned here that currently Aaranyak maintains six well-trained sniffer dogs in its K9 squad of which three units are supported by DSWF and the rest units by NABU. Aaranyak trains Belgian Melinoise in its K9 squad.
Pranjal Das, Manager Wildlife Genetics Division of Aranyak and Jadav Mandal of International Rhino Foundation took part in the inaugural function of the training programme .
It is expected that conviction rate of miscreants will be increased by such training as District Legal Service Authority also imparted training in October 2018 to the staff of the Northern division of Kaziranga National Park (KNP).