Nagpur: Out for the regular evening walk on Friday near Sonegaon Lake with his trainer, seven month-old Golden Retriever ‘Luke’ kept pulling at the leash constantly.
At first, professional dog trainer Amit Gire found this to be a regular canine deviation from the fixed walking route but soon gave in to Luke’s persistence.
As it turned out, Luke’s object of curiosity was a discarded sack with deer skin stuffed inside.
“Dog’s do have a natural curiosity but they won’t go sniffing around with such aggression for regular trash strewn around.
Luke seemed very adamant and that’s why I decided to follow him,” said Gire, who is training the dog owned by city resident Uday Damle.
“I too was taken aback after seeing deer skin, as that’s not what you expect to see on the road,” said Gire.
“We found it near the airport wall on the road where you come from Sonegaon Lake,” said Gire.
Fortunately, Gire did not ignore his ‘citizen’s responsibility’ and decided to inform the authorities right away.
No time was wasted in bureacratic delays as a call to the cops anyways would have been routed to the forest department.
Gire’s first call was directly to Nagpur’s Honorary Wildlife Warden Kundan Hate.
Immediately after learning about the development, Hate informed forest officials.
“Officials reached the spot and conducted the panchnama.
Going by the photos, it seems that the skin is quiet old because it’s broken into pieces.
A new skin does not disintegrate like that,” said Hate.
Hate feels it’s most likely a citizen who did not have a certificate of ownership.
“In 2004, a rule came into effect, that those possessing such things must apply for a certificate, and it was granted too.
Then the Wildlife Act was ammended and if such items are found in people’s possession, without certificate, then it’s illegal.
So it seems that some owner tried to discard it sensing trouble from the law,” said Hate.