American Wolf skin meant for occult scientist seized

Kolkata, Sep 19 (PTI) The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau has seized a wolf-skin with trophy in a consignment coming through United States Postal Service which was meant for a self-proclaimed scientist having interests in occult sciences. After getting inputs about some wildlife contraband being sent through official postal service, the WCCB officials had alerted the foreign post office here. During scanning of parcels, the officials found one consignment from New York carrying a complete Wolf skin with the trophy. The skin was labelled as rug and rolled in a way to give the look, official sources said. This is the second seizure after same WCCB team led by Inspector Abhijit Roy Chowdhury seized a Puma skin coming from Illinois in United State through the US Postal Service last month. Both the consignments were meant for the self-proclaimed scientist working for a private firm. None of the consignments carried necessary legal documentation with them. The team then zeroed in on the residence of the accused where they found large number of small cat bones, deer skins and other illegal wildlife material. The officials have sent the material to Zoological Society of India to get confirmation about the exact species of these dead animals. During the questioning, the self-proclaimed scientist in early thirties told the investigators that he was a follower of "Tantra", a mystical science and said he needed this contraband to perform his occult rituals. When grilled further, he told investigators that he was looking for Lion or a Tiger skin but when he could not get them, he opted for highly endangered exotic species Puma which is also known as Mountain lion and is found in the US. Wolf is listed in appendix one of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) of Wild Fauna and Flora making any kind of trading of it or its part illegal. The grey wolves are given highest level of protection in India being the part of schedule one of the Wildlife Protection Act. "These recoveries show that postal service is being used to send wildlife contraband across the country. These people are now using government postal system to avoid suspicion of the enforcement officials. "We have alerted the postal authorities," an official said. The WCCB has also alerted its counterpart in the United States about the recovery and both the agencies are now trying "connect the dots" to get the exact trail of senders.
Source:http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfeed/news/american-wolf-skin-meant-for-occult-scientist-seized/336573.html