Forest staff in south Haryana will be trained to handle man-animal conflict

The move comes after a leopard was killed on November 24. The leopard had strayed into Mandawar village, which is located 40km from Gurgaon.

As the wildlife department has only one officer for six districts of Haryana, most of the ground work is being looked after by the terrestrial staff who are not trained in handling wildlife and wildlife-related issues. Thus, with a view to protect and conserve the wildlife in the region, the forest staff will be given training on Friday.

A one-day training session will be held for the staff. (Parveen Kumar/ HT Photo)

South Haryana has six divisional forest officers, 16 range officers, 48 block officers and 150 forest guards. However, the wildlife wing has only one divisional officer, three inspectors and 10 field staffers.

“As the wildlife wing is short-staffed, we have been providing them assistance. We will be conducting a one-day training session for the staff to learn how to use a tranquillizer gun. Only the wildlife officer is currently trained to handle a tranquillizer gun,” said MD Sinha, conservator of forest, south Haryana.

This move came after a leopard was killed on November 24 after it strayed into Mandewar village, which is located 40km from Gurgaon. It was beaten to death by residents of Mandewar as it took more than three hours for the wildlife department to arrange the tranquillizer gun and a cage.

Though the forest staff were present at the site, they were not of much help as they were not trained to deal with such a crisis. So, to avoid such incidences in future, the forest department has planned to organise training sessions, where the wildlife doctor will guide officials on how to use a tranquillizer gun on wild animals.

“At present, the Gurgaon and Faridabad forest staff will be trained in the first batch,” said Anand R, divisional forest officer, Gurgaon.

Also a core group will be created in each division. This will consist of 5 terrestrial forest officials and they will further conduct training sessions.