In fact, there's chilling proof right where I live in Munnar: a mongrel that painfully hobbles around on three legs. One of its hind legs was torn off when it wrenched itself free from a wire snare set by poachers to trap barking deer. The canine's plight reflects the barbarity of poachers.

Snares can be as lethal as firearms. Several years ago a gaur blundered into one, cunningly concealed on a jungle path in the tea estate where I worked. Its strangulated carcass - with the edible parts hacked out by the poachers - was found a few days later. The steelwire noose, anchored to a tree, had sliced deep into the animal's neck in its frenzied struggle to free itself. Gaur meat, like venison, is highly prized in Munnar.

More recently, a gaur was shot bypoachers on the golf course of the Kundale Club near Munnar. The miscreants fled when a local tea planter unexpectedly turned up. Despite the efforts of a veterinarian, the grievously wounded animal - shot from close range with a muzzle-loader - could not be saved. What made the incident poignant was that the herbivore was part of a herd which frequented the golf course, often venturing right up to the club's verandah in the evening to lap up the rice gruel put out by the considerate caretaker. Its trust in humans had cost it its life.

In yet another flagrant case of poaching, a sambar stag was shot near a tea planter's residence on the outskirts of Munnar. He pursued the fleeing poachers' jeep at grave personal risk - only to make a startling discovery. One of the poachers was a custodian of the law. When confronted, he glibly claimed that he was merely patrolling the area to apprehend bootleggers!

Unfortunately, despite claims to the contrary, not much can be done to curb - let alone, stamp out -poaching. For demand (pardon the pun!) triggers production. Consuming wildlife meat has become a fetish, or rather an obsession, for many who mistakenly attribute all sorts of medicinal, aphrodisiac and gastronomic properties to it. No wonder then that our legislators and film stars crave the forbidden fruit!

In Munnar the flesh of the Nilgiri langur is widely believed to cure asthma and arthritis, while that of the highly endangered Nilgiri tahr reputedly makes delicious eating. A few years ago a couple of tahr were found in the neighbouring Eravikulam National Park with wire nooses round their necks - obviously wrenched from poachers' snares. Now and then wild pig meat is reportedly served clandestinely in Munnar's bars. And motorists on the Coimbatore-Munnar road sometimes literally run down hares and ingeniously spirit them past Forest checkposts under the bonnets of their vehicles!

During my strolls in Munnar's tea fields I have often surprised coveys of quails. Thrilled by their proliferation, I wasjolted the other day to discover that their eggs - supposedly a delicacy - are available for sale in Munnar - under the counter, of course! Either this endangered species is being bred in captivity illegally or quail nests are being systematically ransacked in the wild. Equally tragic, the rainbow trout, introduced for sport by the British planters several decades ago, has been virtually poisoned and dynamited out of Munnar's rivers and lakes by poachers. And now even the small population of survivors is under threat.

Next to widespread habitat destruction, poaching, we are told, is the bane of our wildlife. It's absolutely true. For there's no deadlier predator in the jungle than the poacher whose ingenuity is matched only by his ruthlessness.