Nuapada: A tiger skin was seized and two alleged wildlife traffickers were arrested near the Odisha-Chhattisgarh border during an anti-poaching operation, highlighting growing concerns over wildlife crime in the adjoining forest areas.
According to Varun Jain, Deputy Director of the Udanti Sitanadi Tiger Reserve, the reserve’s Anti-Poaching Team acted on intelligence about the illegal trafficking of a tiger skin and conducted a raid near Bhanupratappur village on Wednesday. The team apprehended two suspects and recovered a tiger skin from their possession.
During interrogation, the accused allegedly confessed to hunting the tiger in the Indravati-Abujhmad forest region. Both are reported to be residents of Maharashtra’s Chandrapur district.
The seizure was made near the border of Odisha’s Sunabeda Wildlife Sanctuary and Chhattisgarh’s Udanti-Sitanadi Tiger Reserve, an area that has witnessed repeated cases of wildlife poaching in recent years.
Forest officials said the decline in Maoist activity in the border region has coincided with an increase in poaching incidents, underscoring the need for enhanced coordination and stricter surveillance by forest departments of both states to curb illegal hunting and wildlife trafficking.
