The state vigilance and anti-corruption bureau seized a seven-foot-long leopard skin and arrested three persons at a naka near Yol bridge last night. Those arrested were Kapil Dev, Rakesh Kumar and Mandeep Choudhary of Baldhar. A case has been registered under Section 51 (1) A of the Wildlife Protection Act, Section 34 of the IPC and Sections 25, 54 and 59 of the Arms Act. The cost of the seized skin was estimates to be around Rs 5 lakh in the international market.

A tigress killed a man in the Mohraina forest range of Lakhimpur Kheri district in Uttar Pradesh, official sources said here today. Ramesh (30) had gone to the forest to collect firewood on Friday. When he did not return, members of his family tried to trace him. They spotted a mutilated body of Ramesh and the tigress sitting next to him in the forest yesterday, they said. Divisional forest officer R.C. Jha has issued a warning to the people not to venture into dense forest.

Requesting Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to rescind or replace the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, Early Birds, an NGO from the State, submitted a memorandum to the PMO. The environmental NGO has requested the PM to bring forward-thinking legislations in place of the above Act, which can provide forest usufruct rights, as well as, alternative livelihoods to the forest-dependant poor, without making the mistake of land grants.

For a species classified as critically endangered, Gavialis gangeticus, or the gharial, has had it good over the years at Patna zoo. From just 11 in 2002, there are now over 130 gharials in the zoo, officially called the Sanjay Gandhi Biological Park. And the number is only set to grow.

Sea cucumbers are tube-shaped marine animals belonging to the echinoderm group, which includes starfish. They are commonly found moving slowly along the sea floor in shallows like tide pools and coral reefs. They feed on algae and plankton, and are in turn prized in certain east Asian cuisines.

on april 5, 2007, the Supreme Court imposed a penalty of Rs 1 crore on Reliance Telecom for laying 22 km of optic fibre lines through Madhav National Park (mnp) in Madhya Pradesh without