Orlando the dog cracks his first case: Gaur poaching

Thanks to Orlando, the raiding team recovered cooked and raw meat, sharp weapons and liquor from a hideout

Under two months after he joined the forest department, Orlando—a Belgian Malinois dog—helped crack a case of gaur (Indian bison) poaching at the Gorumara National Park in north Bengal on Thursday.

Orlando being trained at the police dog training school at Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh. (Screengrab)

“This was his first assignment. While we have already arrested one person from a hideout near Borodighi tea garden in Jalpaiguri district, we have launched a search operation for seven others,” said a senior official of the forest department.

Thanks to Orlando, the raiding team recovered some cooked and raw meat, sharp weapons and liquor from a hideout, and sent the samples for forensic analysis.

US Navy Seals used the Belgian Malinois breed during the 2011 operation that killed Osama Bin Laden. They also used them to chase down ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before he was killed at Idlib in Syria.

On Thursday morning, the forest department staff of Gorumara National Park found a gaur carcass in the forest. Some portions of the carcass were missing. Later, the forest department received a tip that it could be a case of poaching and that some villagers had cooked the animal’s meat.

“Orlando joined the West Bengal forest department late June. He was trained at the police dog training school at Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh. While Orlando was sent to Gorumara, another Belgian Malinois named Shyana was sent to the Sunderbans to join the department,” said Ravi Kant Sinha, the chief wildlife warden of West Bengal.

The CRPF was the first to introduce the breed in India, and over the years it has become one of the Indian security forces’ favourites, even to conduct anti-maoist operations.