Heftier fine, jail term for poachers

The punishment for killing endangered species or trading in their body parts will soon get a lot stiffer.

The environment ministry has finalised amendments to the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, under which the maximum punishment for a repeat offender, in case of most endangered species, can be upto 10 years in jail or a fine of Rs 1 crore or more.

Currently the maximum punishment for killing an endangered species is three to seven years in jail and a fine of Rs 10,000 for a first offence, and Rs 25,000 for a second offence.

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Wildlife smugglers hunt on Orkut

Even stringent laws and a recently constituted bureau dedicated to check wildlife crime, it seems, cannot deter country’s wildlife smugglers from trading.

In a first of its kind case for Indian authorities, two men have been arrested who had hit upon a rather clever way to smuggle endangered species through social networking website Orkut.

Registering country’s first case of wildlife smuggling through internet, authorities now are busy trying to find out how this trading was being operated. Though there have been cases of wildlife smuggling through internet in countries like US and UK, for Indian authorities its first such case. Authorities maintain that the duo were well connected to customers worldwide through internet.

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