The arrest of cine actor Salman Khan for killing two blackbucks - a small Indian gazelle in Jodhpur was under fortuitous circumstances. Given the wide publicity the hunting spree had attracted, the Rajasthan government could not have turned a blind eye to the incident. But more than that there was intense pressure from the local Bishnoi community, from whose ranks the legendary Amruta - who sacrificed her life to protect a tree - had emerged in the 18th century.Otherwise, the two animals would have been recorded in post mortem reports as having died of natural causes. Very rarely are poaching cases involving influential people registered, let alone pursued to their logical culmination. This despite the fact that Indian wildlife protection laws are amongst the most stringent in the world. As is the case with most other laws, it is in the implementation that they fail.Poachers are well connected and have sophisticated weapons unlike a forest guard who has, on an average, 10 to 15 sq. km of area toprotect and that too with just a danda in his hand. There have been umpteen instances of forest guards having had to suffer physical and mental torture at the hands of poachers in the discharge of their duty. Little wonder that only a small fraction of poaching incidents are reported and acted upon.Salman Khan and company might have been imitating the aristocrats of yore who measured their status in terms of the souvenirs they brought from their hunting expeditions but there are hundreds of professional poachers who make a pile trading in animal products. It is they who make mincemeat of the laws intended to protect endangered species such as the tiger.Despite the attention the national animal gets on account of the much-publicised Project Tiger initiated in 1973, India continues to lose them to poaching. Unless this alarming loss is curtailed, a day will come when the Indian tiger will join the ranks of the Caspian, Bali and Javan species, which are already extinct. In the absence of better-trained andbetter-armed forest guards, such goals will remain unattainable. Unsurprising, considering that a tigerskin fetches at least $5,000 despite the convention on international trade in endangered species. The fate of other animals is similar.As the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has underscored in a recent report, 30 per cent of the natural world has been destroyed in the last 25 years alone. This has a deleterious effect on the fauna. The periodic phenomenon of elephant herds moving from West Bengal to Bihar causing death and destruction on the way is primarily because of the shrinking of their habitat and consequent shortage of food.There are wildlife conservationists who believe that the marginal increase in the number of tigers is on account of migration induced by such shrinkages in neighbouring countries and not because of Project Tiger. Whatever the case, there can be no disputing that the threat to wildlife is too real to be glossed over. Every specimen of wildlife is a symbol of ourbiodiversity and needs to be protected. This is possible only if public consciousness is aroused so that it does not let the Salman Khans who shoot to kill go scot free.
