Wildlife agency seizes huge consignments of live animals

(Image for representational purposes only)

New Delhi: The government's wildlife crime control agency has seized huge consignments of live animals, ivory, tiger and leopard skins among other products and arrested 71 people in a nationwide crackdown on illegal trade in wildlife, in coordination with Interpol.

The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) under the Environment Ministry coordinated 'Operation Thunder Bird' from January 30 to February 19 this year to make the seizures, which the ministry termed as a "major" success in the fight against wildlife crime.

"A total of 2,524 live species of scheduled animals, 19.2 kgs of elephant ivory, 1 tiger skin, 9 carcasses of wild animals, 1 organ pipe coral, 1 jar of snake venom, 8 leopard skins and 1 Indian Muntjac skin was seized.

"The operation brought about a unanimous approach by the state enforcement agencies in the fight against wildlife crime in the country and 71 persons were arrested during the operation," an official statement on the eve of World Wildlife Day said while elaborating about Operation Thunder Bird.

Operation Thunder Bird is the codename for Interpol's multi-national and multi-species enforcement operation.

It said that the operation witnessed overwhelming response from states of Assam, Meghalaya, Maharashtra, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.

The operation brought about an awareness among the enforcement agencies to focus on the existing trade routes and major trade hubs in the country, which will be specifically focused in future, the statement added.

Preceding this operation, WCCB had convened a species specific operation on turtles, codenamed 'Operation Save Kurma' from December 15 last year to January 30 this year where over 15,000 live turtles were seized.

"A total of 15, 739 live turtles were recovered from 45 suspects, having inter-state linkages," it said.