If only poachers could imagine their pet dog or cattle caught in the noose they so thoughtlessly set up to snare wild animals. The suffering inflicted would curdle the blood of even the most remorseless poacher.
A female leopard walked into one of those notorious clutch-wire traps on February 12 in Anandpur Sahib. The contraption tightened around her neck like a hangman’s noose. Rescued and rushed to the Chhatbir zoo, she died within two hours. The hardy, teethed wire of the trap, fashioned from tensile cutch wires used in two-wheelers and other vehicles, dug a quarter of an inch deep into her tough neck. That cut grievously damaged her trachea.
Overwhelming emotional and psychological trauma suffered by the female — a factor common to wounded wild creatures — compounded her critical state. She did not even stagger to her feet once, following rescue. She died as she lay, in capable, but helpless veterinarian hands.
In December 2021, a male leopard got snared in Anandpur Sahib. The wire looped around the torso and cut an inch deep into the soft, abdominal area. The wire had laid bare a section of the viscera. Even veterinarians armed with cutters found it very difficult to cut the hard, entrenched wire. Necrosis and gangrene set in due to tissue damage, but the leopard was blessed. A Herculean effort by the zoo’s team led by Dr Ashish Kumar saved his life after 75 days of daily treatment. To date, Kumar’s team has treated four snared leopards, including a cub. Of the four, two did not survive.
These traps are set for boars and deer to secure crops or for game meat. But leopards on the prey trail are blindsided into walking into the traps. Set adjacent to crop fencing, poachers use fence pillars to anchor the trap. A snared leopard tries its utmost to escape by straining against the wire loop that tethers him/her. But the more the leopard strains to pull free, the more the wire tightens and gnaws deeper. The trapped leopard rests and recoups energies to try and break free once again. The fiercer the leopard’s wild lust for freedom, the more it suffers as the efforts succeed in only activating the wire’s credible counter-force capability.
{{/usCountry}}These traps are set for boars and deer to secure crops or for game meat. But leopards on the prey trail are blindsided into walking into the traps. Set adjacent to crop fencing, poachers use fence pillars to anchor the trap. A snared leopard tries its utmost to escape by straining against the wire loop that tethers him/her. But the more the leopard strains to pull free, the more the wire tightens and gnaws deeper. The trapped leopard rests and recoups energies to try and break free once again. The fiercer the leopard’s wild lust for freedom, the more it suffers as the efforts succeed in only activating the wire’s credible counter-force capability.
{{/usCountry}}The wire’s man-manufactured strength is designed for reliable and safe vehicular drives. Clutch wires are bought by poachers at very cheap rates from spare part stores and mechanics. Disused wires can even be found for free. Adapted to animal traps, the safe wire assumes the avatar of a perverse power. The wire is used throughout India for poaching as it is virtually unbreakable. It inevitably triumphs the big cat’s ferocious energies.
However, if the leopard is rescued quickly enough and the loop is around the abdomen or legs and not the neck, chances of survival are higher. While rescued leopards receive priority and media attention, many lesser creatures suffer horrific deaths. Their bodies are left rotting in the nooses or retrieved surreptitiously by poachers.
The wildlife department has rarely traced snare poachers. Instead, such killings are frequently passed off with an anodyne explanation: the creature “died” as it got “stuck in crop fencing”.
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