Tusks seized from New Alipore house

Alipore: Two elephant tusks weighing around 31kg were seized from a house in New Alipore Block B on Tuesday

One of the tusks is 148cm-long and has a girth of 35cm, while the other has a length of 132cm and a girth of 34cm.

"The tusks were found in the possession of Rabin Paul. We are trying to find out the ownership before taking further action," an officer of the CID said.

The team that raided the New Alipore house following a "specific" tip-off comprised representatives of the CID and the wildlife wing of the state forest department. Calcutta police helped the raiding team.

Possessing or trading in ivory is banned around the world.

A kilogram of uncarved ivory can cost anything between Rs 20,000 and Rs 70,000 in the black market, while intricately carved items can fetch up to crores of rupees.

"Ivory trade within India has come down significantly. Poachers usually target the illegal markets in China, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam and some other Asian countries where the demand for ivory is high.

There, ivory is used in personalised nameplates, statues, and other items," a forest department official said.

Elephant are protected under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. Killing the animal or keeping any ivory item can attract at least three years in jail and a fine of Rs-50,000.

India is home to 27,300 of the 50,000-odd Asian elephants found across the world, according to the 2017 count. At the turn of the century, there were 2,50,000 Asian elephants in 13 countries.

More than 80 elephants were killed in India over the past three years.

A report released by the environment ministry states that Karnataka has the largest number of elephants, followed by Assam and Kerala.

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Quang Nam province to spend over VND128 billion for elephant conservation

The Quang Nam provincial People’s Committee has adopted the establishment of an elephant conservation project on an area of nearly 19,000 hectares in Phuoc Ninh and Que Lam communes, Nong Son district.

Accordingly, the conservation area includes 23 sub-zones, including over 13,400 hectares of strict protection, over 5,500 hectares of the ecological recovery, and nearly 25,000 hectares of buffer zone, which lies in 22 villages in 5 districts.
Le Tri Thanh, Vice Chairman of the Quang Nam provincial People’s Committee, stressed that the establishment of the elephant conservation aims to conserve and develop the Asian elephant species in Vietnam, contributing to realizing the Government’s targets in protecting the environment and biodiversity, and sustainably developing wildlife resources.

Quang Nam province plans to protect, maintain and develop a population of 5-7 elephant individuals living in the locality, safeguard their living habitat, and restore and develop living environment and food to receive single elephant individuals from other areas.

The project will use over VND128 billion until 2030./.

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