4 sniffer dogs to nose around for wildlife crimes in Bengal

Kolkata: A Belgian Malinois, the breed that had helped the SEAL team track Osama bin Laden, will soon trudge through the muddy terrains of the Sunderbans to detect wildlife crimes. This is the first time a

sniffer

dog will be used in the Sunderbans buffer zone that has posted a healthy number in the recently-concluded tiger number-estimation exercise in the mangroves.

The zone, also known as South 24 Parganas forest division, had reported a big-cat poaching last year.

Two more Belgian Malinois and a German Shepherd, all trained at the Gwalior dog training academy, will also be pressed into service in Gorumara, Jaldapara and Buxa in north Bengal. Two will be handed over to the Bengal forest department by June 20.

“While two of the dogs, both Belgian Malinois, have been provided by NGO Saving Tiger Society, the other two are from the international wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC,” state chief wildlife warden Ravi Kant Sinha told TOI. “The former will join the department in South 24 Parganas forest division and Gorumara while the other two will go to Jaldapara and Buxa.”

The department had first procured a sniffer dog in 2016 — a German Shepherd called Rani, who is in Jaldapara now. In 2017, three more dogs — two German Shepherds for the Sunderbans Tiger Reserve and Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary, and a Belgian Malinois for Buxa Tiger Reserve — were roped in.

Saving Tiger Society’s Indrajit Sengupta said Orlando and Shyana have graduated from National Training Centre for Dogs, BSF Academy, Gwalior. “They are aged around 1 year 3 months now. They started training at the age of six months, and the training continued for nine months. They were trained in tracking, sniffing and guarding. If all goes well, we will hand over the dogs to the department this week,” he said. Orlando, he added, will head to Gorumara and Shyana will go to South 24 Parganas forest division.

Sengupta further said that two department staffers — a main handler and an assistant handler — have also been trained with each dog; a dog and two handlers form one dog squad.

“Till now, we have 17 such dog squads. And this is the first time we are sending dogs to Bengal,” Sengupta said. “Earlier, we had sent sniffer dogs to Madhya Pradesh. We also have plans to send two sniffer dogs to the Chhattisgarh government and one to Chitwan National Park in Nepal.”

According to Sinha, the forest department plans to keep at least two sniffer dogs in forest areas of Bengal.