Assam zoo’s ‘animal exchanges’ come under scanner after spurt in illegal wildlife trade
Think of Kangaroos or Wallabies and you instantly think of Australia! After all, these marsupials are indigenous to the Down Under. Similarly, the thought of the Moor Macaque instantly transfers one’s mind to wander in the biodiversity-rich Sulawesi island of Indonesia. The Moor Macaque is endemic to this island. Recently the sightings of these animals in a faraway northeastern state of India, therefore, evoked much curiosity and kicked off a huge controversy.
Seven moor macaques-- a threatened species in the IUCN Red list --were rescued during a police checking at Jamira Police outpost in Assam’s Hailakandi district in the late evening of November 14. The macaques were hidden in four boxes inside a truck bearing registration no NL 01 AD 4984 that was coming from Mizoram. Police seized the animals and arrested two people who revealed that the truck was bound for Shillong, the capital city of Meghalaya, from where the macaques would have been delivered to another destination.
The rescued macaques were sent to the Assam State zoo and Botanical Garden, in the heart of Guwahati, for further identification and treatment. The story, however, simply does not end here.
What happens to the rescued Wildlife
On November 17, the Chiriyakhana Suraksha Manch (CSM), a Guwahat-based citizens organization formed in 2017, hold a protest in front of the Assam State zoo against the purported transfer of the rescued animals along with a pair of the Great One-horned rhino from Assam State Zoo to the Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Kingdom (GRRK) in Jamnagar, Gujarat.
Opposition political parties in the state-- Aam Admi Party, Assam Trinamool Congress and Assam Jatiya Parishad extended support to CSM to stop the move while Assam Zoo’s Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Ashwin Kumar told journalists that they had written to the Central Zoo Authority (CZA) to transfer some exotic animals to a different location (without mentioning the location) citing lack of expert veterinarians and insufficient infrastructure.
The Assam zoo is the biggest in northeastern India and exotic animals seized and rescued in the region are sent here with court orders. CSM also alleged that along with rescued wildlife, State’s rare and endemic species landed in the GRRK in the guise of an animal exchange programme giving details of how the Assam zoo has allegedly become a transit for illegally traded wildlife.
“Many violations have been made during these exchanges.” “Animals have been sent during the night. Even rescued animals have been transferred although rules say that animals, which are not born in the zoo or brought from other places, can’t be transferred. We demand a list of animals being transferred from here to GRRK,” alleged Rajkumar Baishya, general secretary of the CSM.
He also talked about the disappearance of many animals from the Assam State zoo that includes more than 800 deer in recent years.” “A query made under RTI by the CSM, the State zoo authorities had given the total number of animals, including birds, reptiles and mammals as 1223 as on September 1, 2017. But that number has changed to 1129 for the same day in response to a query made by local MLA Ramendra Narayan Kalita in the Assam Assembly a year later”, Baishya said.
DFO Ashwin Kumar, however, maintained that any zoo in the country, private or government can transfer animals with the Central Zoo Authority’s permission. He mentioned a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the Assam State Zoo and the Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Kingdom or the Reliance Zoo in September 2022 on the exchange of technical and scientific exchange between both zoos.
AAP moves HC over the transfer of rescued animals
Rudrankar Hazarika, convenor, the youth wing of the Aam Admi Party (AAP) in Assam informed about seeking the Gauhati High Court’s intervention to stop the illegal transfer of wild animals. In a letter, AAP urged the Chief Justice of Gauhati High Court to take a suo moto case to stop such illegal and unauthorized transfer of protected species from the Assam zoo to a private zoo in Gujarat in violation of the rules and procedures set under the Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972”.
“The state forest department has already filed cases against the offenders for illegal transportation of wild animals. Once the case has been registered, the seized animals need to be in government custody till the disposal of the cases. In such a situation how all these animals can be shifted to a private zoo?” asked R C Goswami, a retired forest officer.
“In 2020, a pair of black panthers was transported to GZRRC from the Assam zoo with the approval of the CZA. In exchange, GZRRK was to send a pair of zebras brought from Israel. Instead of Zebras, the Assam State zoo was received two Isuzu vehicles from the Jamnagar zoo. We want to ask the CZA what kind of exchange is happening here?” asked CSM general secretary Rajkumar Baishya.
The Assam zoo is the only breeding centre for black panthers in the country.
“Growth of private zoos has become a threat to wildlife and actually become the reason for the spurt in illegal wildlife trade. The role of Central zoo Authority of India is also questionable,” feels Jayanta Kumar Das, a wildlife activist who also served as a honorary wildlife warden.
A modern-day Noah’s Ark, Greens Zoological raises many concerns
The Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Kingdom in Jamnagar in India’s Gujarat state with a 280-acre swath has come to be reckoned as one of the world’s largest zoos. The immersion exhibit being developed by Reliance Industries promises the world's biggest wildlife showcase hosting some most majestic, exotic, and endangered animals of the planet like African lions, Royal Bengal tigers, grizzly bears to jaguars, pygmy hippos, kangaroos, rhinos to marmosets. As the name suggests, the Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation will function both as a zoo and animal shelter and the Central Zoo Authority under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has already given its approval in 2019, said sources from the state forest department.
However, there have been many acrimonies and concerns over the acquiring of animals in India and abroad for this modern-day Noah’s Ark. “Sure, it has all the chances of becoming a most lucrative destination for all kinds of endangered species from all over the world but this facility is going to make some species all the more vulnerable”, said a conservationist and senior veterinarian who did not wish to be named. "We at the moment might not be looking into the probability of Zoonotic diseases that might also spread through the transfer of exotic species,” he added.
“When it comes to mega faunas like the elephant, our central and state governments need to pay heed why and how so many Asiatic elephants have been transferred to this arid part of the country from their natural habitats. Such transfers have been a direct violation of Wildlife Protection laws, especially about Schedule 1 animals. This is a clear case of habitat displacement, he said adding “Whatever be the state-of-the-art facility, it is simply unethical to relocate these long-ranging mega faunas—elephants and rhinos--from the place of their natural occurrence to an unnatural terrain with very different climatic and geographic location.”
In June, ten elephants were sent from Arunachal Pradesh to the Radhe Krishna Temple Welfare Trust in Jamnagar, Gujarat. Reports later revealed that there are 152 Asian elephants already in captivity at Trust’s area in Jamnagar.
“Most of the animals being allegedly transferred are of “rainforest and grassland” origins and are not accustomed or known to exist/survive in the harsh arid desert-type climate in Gujarat. No assurance has been made as to how the survival of such endangered animals is ensured in a habitat, they are not suitable for,” said the AAP letter.
Assam government was forced to stop the transfer of four elephants citing an extreme heat wave in Gujarat after animal rights activists approached the Gauhati High Court with a PIL in 2019.
There have also been concerns about Greens Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre’s experience and capabilities. A Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court of India questioning many aspects of the zoo sought a ban on its acquiring of animals within India and abroad. The matter was heard on August 16. But after the GZRRC submitted a detailed response, the Top Court dismissed those concerns saying it did not find ‘any logic or basis’ concerning the allegations and that there is ‘hardly any scope’ to dispute the organization's functioning.
Spurt in cases of illegal wildlife trade
The Dimapur-Moreh-Myanmar route that links international markets of Southeast Asia is known for trafficking of wildlife parts and trade in small animals like Red-crowned roofed turtles and Indian star tortoises, Pangolins and monitor lizard, the gecko as well as all species of nocturnal Asian lizards. India’s northeastern states have remained a source for wildlife products like rhino horns, pangolin scales, tiger parts as well as organs of various cat and civet species and ivory.
Recent years, however, saw a spurt in the illegal trade of exotic wildlife into Assam through the same route. Trafficking gangs in South East Asia have been using India’s long porous border with Myanmar as an active transit route taking advantage of the Pandemic and Myanmar's unstable political situation. Most of the exotic wildlife rescued in Assam -- baby Orangutans, kangaroos, chimpanzees, macaques, birds and turtles and many of them belonging to the IUCN’s threatened, endangered and critically endangered list, travelled through Mizoram.
Assam Police in September seized 40 rare exotic animals, including 19 primates and two baby wallabies, from two West Bengal-bound vehicles at Rangia in Kamrup district. In March, another consignment of marmosets, macaws and tamarin monkeys were caught during routine checks in the Golaghat district came from Moreh in Manipur.
“According to reports, more than 200 people have been arrested and 152 cases have been registered in Assam in the last couple of years but to impose legal action against illegal transit/trade of exotic species, provisions in our law seem insufficient. When it comes to cases of seized exotic animals, provisions in the Convention on Inter-national Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is vague making them prone to trafficking,” said a forest official who spoke on conditions of anonymity.
“The sudden rise in the number of cases of “rescue”—is this also a part of the game? We have actually seen such exotic animals being rescued in large numbers after 2019! Most of these “rescued” animals then land in the Assam State zoo and from there relocated to Jamnagar. This needs to be investigated,” said Dilip Nath, an RTI activist.
Wildlife Crime Control Bureau officials were not ready to comment on the issue.
“It is unusual that there is a sudden surge of such incidences. It should be investigated properly—where are these animals going? Where is the demand for these animals? What happened to the animals seized earlier? In which zoos are they being kept? The status of these rescued animals should be monitored and updated regularly,” said Dr. Narayan Sharma, who teaches Environmental Biology & Wildlife Sciences at Cotton University.
Police sources said the trafficked animals were taken to Siliguri in West Bengal from where they are sent to private zoos and amusement parks. 'Exchange of animals' between zoos has become the point of contention after these rescued animals are transferred illegally to privately-owned zoos.
