The Weirdest Thing in
Wildlife Crime
Sanctuary | Conservation Action
By Vivek Menon
“Yuck! Dad! Is this not the weirdest thing you
have ever seen?” my son walked in brandishing a copy of
Sanctuary in front of my nose.
The article on the internet trade of monitor lizard penises
being busted by the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau assisted by
the Wildlife Trust of India was nothing new to me. The photo
he was pointing to, of a shrivelled organ looking somewhat
like a pair of hands folded in prayer, was weird indeed. But
I felt no amazement. And it was certainly not the weirdest
thing I had ever seen.FIVE HARD LESSONS
Twenty-fi ve years ago I had spent a substantial portion of
my daylight, and part of my nights as well, tracking wildlife
crime. Mentored by the trailblazing Ashok Kumar, I hadgone undercover into Gali No. 11 in Delhi’s Sadar Bazar,
the headquarters of the tiger bone trade at that time. I
had spent months surveying the barter of guns for wildlife
and women for drugs on the Myanmar border, digging up
info on the rhino horn trade. I had dealt with the Yakuza
in Japan, traded fi sticuff s with elephant poachers in the
south of India and learnt how to set snares for clouded
leopards in the Northeast. In the Philippines I had travelled
to forbidden Mindanao to deal with ivory traders and in the
process caught a deadly pneumonia; in Taiwan I had raided
the night markets where wildlife was on sale; and in Macao
I had gambled in a fi ve-star casino where most ivory ended
up being traded. All this was long ago and now ensconced
in a comfortable armchair, worrying about the workings of
one of India’s larger not-for-profi t organisations dealing withVIVEK MENON