As nilgai wreck crops in Haryana, poaching networks emerge

Three gunshots were fired, one startlingly close to where Satpal Singh sat in his wheat fields on a foggy December evening. In front of his eyes, lay a bleeding and possibly pregnant nilgai struggling for her last breath. Singh and his friends chased the poacher through the golden brown grass almost ready for harvest, but he outran them.

Six years later Singh, a farmer growing mustard, sugarcane, millets, cotton in addition to wheat in the northern Indian state of Haryana, can tell half a dozen such stories of skirmishes with poachers.

The term nilgai literally means “blue bull” in the local language. However, it’s not a bull. Its body rather resembles a horse, with its long neck and sturdy legs, but it’s not even a horse. Nilgais are the largest antelope species in the northern Indian subcontinent, deriving their name from their cow-like horns and tail and their blue-grey hued skin.

Their natural habitat is in the rolling savannas: dry grasslands with scattered trees and short bushes, where they maintain vegetation balance by grazing on grass, herbs, fruits, and flowers. Their droppings enrich the soil and help disperse seeds. And in the areas where they cohabitate with carnivores, such as in the Aravallis, they become an important part...

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