The wildlife sniffer and offence tracking dogs squad training centre at Melukamanahalli administrative block area in Bandipur Tiger Reserve, in Chamarajanagar district.
Credit: DH Photo
Mysuru: Bandipur Tiger Reserve has become first in the country to establish a wildlife sniffer and wildlife offence-tracking dogs squad training centre at its Melukamanahalli administrative block area.
Currently, 10 Belgian Malinois breed puppies have been selected for training. After 10 months of training, two each will be sent to five tiger reserves of the state - Bandipur, Nagarahole, Bhadra, Biligiri Ranga Tiger Reserve (BRT) and Kali Tiger Reserve. They have also invited sniffer dog keepers from each tiger reserve of Karnataka dog. These dogs will be deployed to detect any forest and wildlife offences such as poaching, illegal timber felling and to seize any wildlife contrabands (illegal export of wild animals or forest goods or weapons), according to officers.
These sniffer dogs are provided by TRAFFIC (Trade Records Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce-Wildlife trade monitoring network) WWF (World Wildlife Fund)- India. These dogs are already trained for 7-8 months at Basic Training Centre in Indo-Tibet Border Police Force (BTC-ITBP), Panchkula, Haryana, according to Conservator of Forest (Project Tiger) and former director of BTR, P Ramesh Kumar.
Bandipur Tiger Reserve had Rana, a sniffer dog and it died last year due to age-related ailments, after eight years of service. Now Bandipur has Drona, a new and young sniffer dog, which was trained and deployed last year,” Ramesh Kumar said.
“Apart from wildlife sniffing activity, these dogs will track and detect the forest and wildlife crime offences and offenders, and play a vital role in wildlife crime prevention. They will be involved in human-animal conflict operations. They will be used to detect miscreants involved in intentional fire in the forest, during summer. This centre is first of its kind and a model to the country,” Ramesh Kumar said.