(IN): Survey identifies habitual animal hunters

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*http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/details.asp?id=mar0209/ne6

 

Survey identifies habitual animal hunters**

* KOHIMA, March 1 – Habitual animal hunters have disclosed on their own the

number of mammals and birds they hunted for consumption during 2008 in

Nagaland villages.

 

Habitual hunters responded overwhelmingly to a survey conducted by the

Nagaland Empowerment of People through Environment Development (NEPED), a

government agency promoting imperatives of re-conciliation between the

community needs and eco-conservation for the past decade in the hilly State.

 

Instead of government employees or village council officials, the NEPED

deployed facilitators of community conservation to pursue habitual animal

hunters and procure detailed information on their month-wise hunting during

the year 2008.

 

The study covered 100 villages randomly selected across the State and

already 50 per cent of reports had been received by the NEPED which would

later analyse them. The entry list comprised information on hunting of

jungle cats, large mammals, smaller mammals, large birds and others.

 

A random glance at the entry lists dispatched from a village under Kiphire

district, where 13 villagers identified themselves as habitual animal

hunters, revealed that most of them targeted jungle cats.

 

“We have specifically given importance in procuring proper information on

the killing of jungle cats as there are reports from some parts of eastern

Nagaland that the rat population is on the rise which might pose threat to

crops,” NEPED officials said. As jungle cats prey on rats, the rodent

population is kept in check. – PTI

 

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