{"id":36293,"date":"2024-02-24T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-24T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1054c862-f123-41a5-b204-060962dbfe5d"},"modified":"2024-02-24T10:35:41","modified_gmt":"2024-02-24T09:35:41","slug":"its-cold-blooded-murder-the-real-life-story-behind-poacher-amazons-blockbuster-wildlife-crime-drama","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/rss_feed\/its-cold-blooded-murder-the-real-life-story-behind-poacher-amazons-blockbuster-wildlife-crime-drama\/","title":{"rendered":"“It’s cold-blooded murder”: The real-life story behind\u00a0Poacher, Amazon’s blockbuster wildlife crime drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

Poacher is a dramatisation of the largest ever elephant poaching case in India. Graeme Green speaks to Jose Louies, Chief of Enforcement during the investigation, and a host of other experts to find out more about the events that took place, the new crime series and the state of the Asian ivory trade today. <\/p>

By Graeme Green\n <\/p>

Published: Saturday, 24 February 2024 at 08:30 AM<\/p>

\n\n

\u201cI can watch a tusker elephant for hours. It\u2019s such a majestic animal to see in the forest,\u201d says Jose Louies, CEO of the Wildlife Trust of India<\/a> (WTI). \u201cWhen you see that same animal dead, its head cut open for the tusks, it\u2019s horrific. It\u2019s cold-blooded murder.\u201d<\/p>

Louies and his team\u2019s work to combat the killing of Asian elephants<\/a> is the subject of Poacher<\/em>, a major new\u00a0Amazon Original Series. Based on the real-life events of Operation Shikar, the series covers a sprawling investigation that took place between 2015 and 2017 into elephant poaching in the southern state of Kerala, which led to 72\u00a0arrests across India, including elephant poachers, government officials, carvers and high-end ivory art dealers.\u00a0<\/p>

\u201cIt\u2019s the largest ever elephant poaching case in India,\u201d\u00a0says Louies, who was\u00a0Chief of Enforcement (Wildlife Crime Control) at the time.\u00a0Operation Shikar originally confirmed gangs had killed around 28 tuskers. But the actual number is thought to be far higher. \u201cI don\u2019t say ‘hundreds’ because I don\u2019t have evidence, but I don\u2019t rule it out,\u201d\u00a0Louies tells me.\u00a0\u201cThis gang was operational for 10 years. In the three years we covered, they easily brought down 50 elephants. Twenty-eight guns were seized and around a dozen people were poaching on the ground, which puts the number much higher. Poaching wasn\u2019t limited to the area we investigated; Kerala connects with Karnakata and Tamil Nadu, and the poachers travelled to these areas, so the number could be much more. It was a challenging investigation. We never thought it would become a TV show.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>

Louies, the key protagonist in Poacher<\/em>, is enjoying the spotlight, not for himself but for the issue of poaching.\u00a0\u201cWhen you talk about the ivory trade, people think of the African ivory trade,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople don\u2019t think about the Asian ivory trade, but it happens in India.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>