Wildlife crime thrives in least forested Punjab

Punjab, one of India’s least forested states, challenges the perception that wildlife crime is limited to dense forests and protected areas.

A new study has identified emerging wildlife crime hotspots in the agriculture-based state, where forest cover accounts for less than 3.6% of its 50,362 square kilometers of geographic area. The findings show how illegal hunting, smuggling and trafficking networks adapt to a human-dominated environment by exploiting gaps in monitoring and enforcement.

Tarn Taran-based citizen scientist Navdeep Sood and Rohan Kumar of Lovely Professional University in Phagwara are the authors of the study, published in the latest issue of research. Journal of Threatened Taxa.

Their study documents 32 incidents of wildlife crime in Punjab between 2019 and 2024, affecting thousands of animals, many of which are endangered. In addition to wild boar, leopard, tiger, sambar, freshwater turtle and Tibetan antelope, marine species are also among the animals traded.

Based on reported wildlife crimes, researchers warn that these incidents represent the tip of the iceberg. Wildlife crimes in Punjab are not randomly distributed but highly concentrated, researchers said. Using spatial analysis, they found that 1% of the State’s area (approximately 509 km2) consists of high-density crime hotspots, while approximately 30% falls in low-to-medium-density areas.

Analysis of recorded incidents revealed that wildlife crimes were concentrated in the Shivalik foothills and districts of Amritsar, Hoshiarpur, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Pathankot, Rupnagar, SAS Nagar and Tarn Taran.

bushmeat trade

The study identified wild boar as the most frequently targeted species and is often linked to the bushmeat trade and illegal transport networks. In one case, 127 living and dead people were seized.

The seizure of 201 shahtosh shawls during the research period shows that hundreds of Tibetan antelopes were killed and reveals links to international trade chains. The Tibetan antelope is found in the Qinghai and Xinjiang regions of China and the Ladakh and Karakoram regions of India.

Similarly, the presence of seafood in a landlocked state like Punjab signaled long-distance smuggling networks. Transit hubs, including Amritsar and Attari (the border point), are increasingly being marked as critical nodes in illegal wildlife trade routes, the researchers noted.

According to the research, the methods of crime used range from nets and wire traps to metal traps, firearms and trained dogs, indicating a mix of opportunistic poaching and organized crime. It was also noted that wildlife derivatives such as tiger skin, bear bile, coral and lizard oil were also recovered; this points to complex supply chains that extend far beyond Punjab.

The researchers recommended targeted enforcement, better monitoring and stronger inter-agency coordination to control wildlife crime in the North Indian State bordering Pakistan.