Environment › Biodiversity governance
Human wildlife conflict and wildlife crime
Where wild animals and people meet, and where the law meets those who trade in wildlife: conflict and compensation, roads and railways through habitat, poaching, seizures and the smuggling of exotic animals. Prelims has asked which of a set of animals, the star tortoise among them, are found naturally in India.
All 5 subjects shown; the 2 that changed from 1 to 15 September 2026 are marked.Show only these
Lion attacks on people
Copy link to Lion attacks on peoplePrelims and Mains
Lions living among people sometimes attack them, and a species found nowhere else offers no easy answer to that. Gujarat's answer is to take the animal out of the landscape rather than out of the population.
- It is creating a 100 ha enclosure for lions that have attacked people.
What changed
6 Aug 2026
11 Jul 2026Updatealso in news
- A lion killed a boy on Girnar Hill in Junagadh, a pilgrimage hill inside lion range, a marker of lions spreading well beyond the Gir core.
The Hindu, 11 Jul 2026: Lion kills 11-year-old boy on Girnar Hill in Gujarat (opens in a new tab)
Orangutans
Copy link to OrangutansPrelims and Mains
Five baby orangutans were found abandoned in Balasore district, Odisha, of an animal that is not merely rare in India but has no wild range here at all, and that is one of the great apes.
- Orangutans live wild only on Borneo and Sumatra, and are the only great apes found in Asia.
- The five can therefore only have been brought into the country, which is why the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB), the statutory body that takes up a trafficking investigation, opened one.
- They were given a new home in Odisha while the route by which they arrived is traced.
- All three orangutan species are in CITES Appendix I.
Bornean orangutan
- Pongo pygmaeus, the lowland and hill rainforests of Borneo
- Critically Endangered
Sumatran orangutan
- Pongo abelii, the rainforests of northern Sumatra
- Critically Endangered
Tapanuli orangutan
- Pongo tapanuliensis, the Batang Toru forest of North Sumatra
- Critically Endangered
What changed
Background reading: The Indian Express, 9 Sep 2026: As 5 orangutans find new home in Odisha, a probe into how they landed there (opens in a new tab)
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2023: which animal makes a tool from a stick
Pangolin, Indian star tortoise and tokay gecko
Copy link to Pangolin, Indian star tortoise and tokay geckoPrelims and Mains
The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence announced a haul of three heavily trafficked species, each wanted for a different reason: scales for medicine, a tortoise for a pet shop, a gecko dried for a remedy.
- The seizures were of two leopard pelts, 180 live Indian star tortoises, 12 live tokay geckos, about 24 kg of pangolin scales and 500 grams of tiger bones.
- The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) works under the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, and meets wildlife cases at the customs frontier, alongside the Bureau.
Pangolin
- Schedule I
- CITES Appendix I since 2016
- Indian Manis crassicaudata, Endangered, across much of India
- Chinese Manis pentadactyla, Critically Endangered, in the Northeast
- Scales for traditional medicine
Indian star tortoise
- Schedule I
- CITES Appendix I since 2019
- Geochelone elegans, Vulnerable
- Dry scrub and grassland of peninsular and northwestern India, and Sri Lanka
- Exotic pet trade
Tokay gecko
- Schedule I
- CITES Appendix II since 2019
- Gekko gecko, Least Concern globally
- Dried for traditional medicine, some pet demand
What changed
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2013: species found naturally in India, including the star tortoise
Centre of Excellence on Human Wildlife Conflict
Copy link to Centre of Excellence on Human Wildlife ConflictPrelims and Mains
The Centre of Excellence is the national hub set up by the Environment Ministry for research and policy on human wildlife conflict, paired with a National Human Wildlife Conflict Portal that pools conflict data from the States.
What changed
10 Jul 2026New subject
- A Centre of Excellence has been set up as the national hub for research and policy on conflict, along with a National Human Wildlife Conflict Portal to pool conflict data across States.
- The Ministry asked it to take up the three hardest cases first: tigers outside reserves, leopards and elephants, with measures specific to the area and the species.
Profiling elephants that stray
Copy link to Profiling elephants that strayPrelims and Mains
Elephants that repeatedly enter settlements are usually a few identifiable individuals whose movements follow a pattern, which is why forest departments have begun keeping photo profiles of them.
What changed
27 Jul 2026New subjectalso in news
- Kerala's Forest Department has begun photo profiling individual elephants that repeatedly enter settlements, after finding that habitual strayers follow predictable patterns. A separate study found rainfall to be the strongest predictor of elephant presence in the southern Western Ghats.
The Hindu, 27 Jul 2026 · The Hindu, 14 Jul 2026: Rainfall has major impact on elephant movement in southern Western Ghats (opens in a new tab)
See also: The elephant
Also filed elsewhere
- Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve · on Protected areas, tiger reserves and eco sensitive zones
India's largest tiger reserve lost three tigers in July, and one of them was poached.
- Project Elephant · on Elephants and other land mammals
Project Elephant marked World Elephant Day with two announcements, and neither was about how many elephants there are.