Smoke at Panchachuli peak, poachers on the hunt for musk deer

ALMORA: For two days now, the foothills of the Panchachuli peak in eastern Kumaon has been enveloped in black smoke. This is a regular practice — poachers set fire to the forests here in a bid to trap and capture musk deer, the state animal of Uttarakhand.

The deer has been poached to the brink of extinction and is now listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Poachers block off escape routes for the deer by burning forests and then strike to kill these animals. The white-bellied musk deer is a high-altitude animal, which roams in dense Himalayan forests at over 3,500 metres above sea level. At the onset of winter, the deer descends in search of food, when their habitat is covered in snow.

Forest officer of Pithoragarh RC Sharma admitted that the burning of forests is used as a tactic by poachers.

“Forest teams will soon rush to the spot. It takes two days to reach the foothills of Panchachuli from Munsiyari,” he said. This year, the SDM of Munsiyari, Kaustav Mitra, had instructed forest officials to take proactive action.

“I have sent different teams to the foothills of Panchachuli. I have asked the ITBP and revenue teams to share details, if hunters are spotted,” he said.

The musk deer is known to be a “shy” animal that emerges in the open only at dusk, to graze till dawn. The male species secretes a waxy substance in the abdomen called musk, which the deer use to separate territories by smell and attract females.

This musk is used in perfumes and medicines and is sold for as much as $50,000 for a kg in the black market.