ARIYALUR: Village kitchen channels on YouTube are popular and remunerative. However, four poachers who maintained such a channel earning Rs 1.5 lakh a month, were arrested on Friday.
Hailing from Nachiyarpettai in Ariyalur district, the accused were seen hunting wild boar, civet, rabbit, iguana, partridge, hare, Indian monitor lizard and dove and cooking and eating them. Officials, who initially could not figure out where the crime was happening, got a lead from one of their videos in which a chilli powder packet with Tamil letters was seen.
According to sources, the accused have been identified as K Annadurai (37), a photographer, M Karthick (24), a construction worker, Alex Pandian (23) and R Subramanian (37), both farmers. As they were worried about their paltry income, they launched a YouTube Channel, Village Hunter, in February. They started uploading videos of hunting animals and birds in Manakethi forest area. The videos also showed them cooking and eating the hunted species. Annadurai, who was well-versed in video editing, was admin of the channel.
As expected, the videos became popular and the channel got about 5.59 lakh subscribers. One of the videos got as many as 10 million views. According to officials, the poachers earned at least Rs 1.5 lakh per month and, in total, about Rs 15 lakh.
As the videos went viral, they caught the eyes of the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau. A Mathivanan, wildlife inspector of the bureau, said, “They made the videos very cleverly. Their voice could not be heard and also the place of hunting could not identified. Only music was heard in the background.”
Earlier, the officer thought the crime was happening in some other state. However, one of the videos had a chilly powder packet with Tamil letters in it, giving the poachers away. He then passed on the information to the Forest Department in Tamil Nadu. On receiving a tip-off, Forest Department officials zeroed-in on the poachers and arrested them.