Our Correspondent
MANGALDAI: Premier biodiversity conservation and research organization, Aaranyak on Sunday morning gifted two motorcycles to Darrang district police and also provided a unit of its K9 squad of sniffer dog to the authority of Orang National Park (ONP).
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and secretary-general of Aaranyak, Dr Bibhab Talukdar, while handing over the respective items to the police and forest authorities, informed that it was part of Aaranyak’s sustained efforts to boost the continuous endeavours of Assam Police and Assam Forest Department to prevent and check wildlife crimes in the area so as to protect the wildlife species, including the one-horned rhino and the endangered Royal Bengal Tiger (RBT), in Orang National Park that is spread over about 80 sq km area in Darrang and Sonitpur districts of North Assam.
The motorcycles have been gifted to Darrang district police at the request of the Superintendent of Police, Amrit Bhuyan for the purpose of augmenting patrolling by police personnel engaged in checking and prevention of wildlife crimes, including hunting of animals in the national park.
“The two-wheelers will be handy for strengthening the networking with the Village Defence Parties which have been instrumental in checking wildlife crimes,” said Superintendent of Police Amrit Bhuyan.
CEO of Aaranyak, Dr Talukdar and Manas Bhattacharjya, Manager, Legal and Advocacy Division of Aaranyak, also handed over a trained sniffer dog from Aaranyak’s K9 dog squad along with a dog trainer to Orang National Park. The sniffer dog was received by Divisional Forest Officer (Wildlife) Ramesh Gogoi in Orang National Park. The sniffer dog is sponsored by David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation (DSWF) which has been maintaining a long-term association with Aaranyak.
Taking charge of the sniffer dog, the DFO said, “Aaranyak has fulfilled a long-felt need of Orang National Park by providing the sniffer dog that will be of immense value in checking and investigating wildlife crimes, especially hunting in the Park.” Aaranyak has already provided three such sniffer dogs to Kaziranga National Park and one more at Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary.