Udupi: Forest Officials Raid Animal Shelter at Saligrama, Arrest Owner
 
Suvarna Brahmavar
Daijiworld Media Network - Udupi (RD)
 
Udupi, Feb 28: The officers of special forest mobile squad arrived from Bangalore and raided a private animal home near Narasimha temple, Saligrama, near Brahmavar here on Tuesday February 28.
 
The officers also arrested Sudhindra Aithal, the owner of the animal home and presented him before the court on charges of illegally sheltering wild animals and birds.

Sudhindra Aithal is an animal activist who shelters wild animals and birds that are wounded. The locals take wounded birds and wild animals in their neighbourhood to the animal home owned by Sudhindra Aithal.
 
However, as per the Wildlife Act, one is not allowed to shelter a few varieties of wild animals and birds, and even if the wounded animals are given treatment, they must be released into the wild or reserved forests after they recuperate. But Sudhindra Aithal continued to keep them under his care.

The department officers said that Sudhindra was expected to inform the department concerned once the wounded wild animals and birds were brought into his care, which he did not.
 
The home has peacocks, jackals, monkeys, owls, tortoises, boars and other wild animals sheltered by Sudhindra, which is a criminal offence under Wildlife Act.
 

Second raid by department officials

The department officials had raided the animal home owned by Sudhindra three years ago. Hundreds of wild animals and birds were seized and handed over to a sanctuary. A wild buffalo and a porcupine were allowed to remain, since the animals resisted anyone trying to come near them except Sudhindra. Since then, many other wild animals and birds were taken into the home.
 
Sudhindra Aithal has registered his animal home as an ordinary entity and has not obtained permission from department concerned, it is learned.
 
The officials stated that as per the court order, the wild animals and birds will be transported to sanctuaries in Mysore and Pilikula Nisargadhama at Mangalore.
 
Forest mobile squad ASP M K Murali led the raid along with Udupi range forest officer Prakash, Anantayya, Laxminarayan, Rajashekar, Ramakrishna, Manjunat, Jeevandas Shetty, Shankar, Ramesh, Manju and others.
 
Saligrama town panchayat president K Raju Poojary, Beloor Spoorthidhama proprietor Keshav Koteshwar, local Committee president Acchut Poojary, Nagaraj Ganiga, Maithri Shekar, Srinivas Amin, M S Sanjeev and others paid a visit to the animal home.