It was a ghastly sight - the brutally decapitated and bloodied carcass of a young tusker, its severed trunk lying nearby. Its killers had diabolically hacked away its head for two obvious reasons: to remove its tusks which they were after, and to ensure that the bullet wound in its skull would never help to identify the gun used. The poachers had carefully stalked their quarry and shot it from close range. Death had been instantaneous for the vegetation around was undisturbed, showing no sign of the elephant having thrashed around in its death throes. This gruesome crime took place on the outskirts of Munnar just a month ago in an area known as Elephant Lake - an isolated, sylvan retreat frequented not only by elephants but people like myself. Like the others, on virtually every visit I had come across evidence of the pachyderms' presence - mounds of their droppings and imprints of their tracks in the mud. However, I always gave them a wide berth and vice versa. We kept out of each other's way and thus got along splendidly. Only once did a tusker trumpet menacingly on finding me at the lake; it did not want a spectator around while taking a dip. So I beat a hasty retreat. As news of the killing spread people flocked to Elephant Lake. Their curiosity, however, soon turned to shock and revulsion on seeing the brutality of the poachers. Could humans be capable of such barbarism, some of the more sensitive among them openly wondered. Man, one outraged onlooker observed, is beastlier than animals. For Munnar, famed for its wealth of wildlife and history of conservation, this was tragically the first case of its kind, and it fortunately into galvanised the authorities into action, ably assisted by the High Range Wildlife & Environment Preservation Association, a local livewire NGO actively involved in wildlife conservation. All checkposts in the vicinity were alerted to check all vehicles for the tusks. A sniffer dog was deployed in a bid to track down the miscreants. Patrolling was intensified in all known elephant habitats as a precaution. Several unlicensed guns were sized. And a handsome cash reward was announced for information about the culprits. Yet the tusks were somehow smuggled out of Munnar, probably through one of the many jungle paths snaking across the hills. This was hardly surprising since a few years ago a pair of six-foot tusks were stolen from the High Range Club in Munnar and were never traced despite the best efforts of the police. Yesterday, however, in a morale-boosting breakthrough, the Forest Department recovered the tusks of the recently poached elephant and arrested three suspects about 60 kilometres from Munnar. In retrospect, an analysis of the modus operandi of the poachers indicates that they are not novices. And this raises some disturbing questions. Has the Veerappan `culture' of ivory poaching spread to Munnar, hitherto free of this scourge? Are the days of those magnificent tuskers that roam the hills of Munnar, numbered? With its limited manpower, can the Forest Department effectively police the hills of Munnar against poachers? And if poachers get away scot free, as Veerappan has time and again, would it not embolden others to follow suit, thereby compounding the problem? This is the question that bothers local nature-lovers and conservationists alike. They realise that only unrelenting vigilance and an abiding commitment to wildlife conservation can prevent a recurrence of poaching in Munnar, long known to be a wildlife-friendly region. But, if a young tigress can be clandestinely killed in the Hyderabad zoo, can wildlife really survive in our unprotected jungles with trigger-happy poachers on the prowl?
