Poachers in the hilly tracts and deep forests of the Western Ghat have a nemesis. His name is G Veeresh. The 38-year-old Chikkamagaluru-based farmer-turned-wildlife conservationist was honoured by the Karnataka Forest Department’s Bhadra Tiger Reserve for his wildlife education programmes during the Wildlife Week celebrations held during October 2-8 in the state.
The difference between Veeresh and most other wildlife activists is that he is a direct interventionist. Seminars and policy initiatives are secondary. This king of the jungle prefers the actual thrill of the chase. “Local wildlife traders are caught regularly with antlers, meat, skin, claws and bones. In many cases, I have caught offenders directly and then informed the authorities. I have established my own network of informers, who gather leads and pass them on to me,” he says.
Veeresh is periodically present at wildlife hot spots himself, looking for criminals. Day or night, he is involved in the detection of wildlife crime, monitors all illegal non-forest activities and does not shirk from going to court when everything else fails. He is sympathetic to the rights of animals in their own habitats and the instinct that guides them to feed and thrive. A massive man hunt is on currently for the Tadoba tigress, which has reportedly killed 13 people in the jungles of Central India. But Veeresh insists a tiger should not be declared a man eater without serious investigation and research beforehand.
In 2014, forest rangers captured a tiger from Pandarvalli forests of Chikkamagalur and released it into the wild. It killed a woman shortly thereafter. Veeresh has his own take on the matter. “I came across the tiger, which was declared a man eater just five feet away from me in the forest. It did not attack me. However, three months later a woman was killed by this tiger. It should have been monitored by experts before it was let out into the wild, but it was not done. Many such wrong decisions were taken in this case,” says the activist, who did MSc in Environmental Science from Kuvempu University, Karnataka.
It was after graduation that Veeresh became interested in the poaching and illegal hunting activities in the Bhadra region. Tree smuggling too came to his attention and he began to monitor illegal activities in Bhadra and surrounding regions. The fight that started 13 years ago is still on, regardless of threats from poachers, smugglers and the real estate mafia. In a high-profile case of Sambar hunting in Karnataka, Veeresh helped authorities nail culprits. “I carried out investigations and supported the authorities in digging information,” he says.
Under the National Tiger Conservation Authority, he has participated in postmortems of leopards and tigers in the Bhadra Tiger Reserve. “My job is to see that the authorities do not hide the facts,” says Veeresh, who has been recognised by the Wildlife Conservation Society and Centre for Wildlife Studies for his work in major tiger reserves of the state. Veeresh’s ultimate dream is to ensure the tigers and elephants in the Bhadra region are protected. He is proving dreamers can be action heroes too.