CRACK DOWN

As the new Amazon drama Poacher hits our screens, we take a look at the fight to end ivory poaching in India

- GRAEME GREEN

"I CAN WATCH A TUSKER ELEPHANT FOR HOURS. It's such a majestic animal to see in the forest," Jose Louies, CEO of the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), tells me. "When you see that same animal dead, its head cut open for the tusks, it's horrific."

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

"It's the largest ever elephant-poaching case in India," says Louies, who was chief of enforcement (Wildlife Crime Control) at the time. Operation Shikar originally confirmed gangs had killed around 28 tuskers, but the actual number is thought to be far higher. "I don't say hundreds because I don't have evidence, but I don't rule it out," Louies says.

"This gang was operational for 10 years. In the three years we covered, they easily brought down 50 elephant," he continues. "Twenty-eight guns were seized and around a dozen people were poaching on the ground, which puts the number [of elephants killed] much higher. Poaching wasn't limited to the area we investigated; Kerala connects with Karnataka 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."

Louies, the key protagonist in Poacher, is enjoying the spotlight - not for himself, but for the issue of poaching. "When you talk about the ivory trade, people think of the African ivory trade," he says. "But it happens in India."