India’s wildlife faces relentless threats from smuggling and illegal trade, making stronger enforcement urgent. Sniffer dogs have proven to be a  game-changer in detecting wildlife contraband and deterring crime. To scale this success, Maharashtra is partnering with World Wide Fund for Nature-India (WWF) to establish a dedicated wildlife sniffer dog training centre at Shahapur in Thane district, possibly India’s first of its kind.

Since 2008, WWF-India has pioneered this programme with forest departments and Railway Police Force (RPF). The new facility will train dog squads not just for Maharashtra’s tiger reserves, but for states across the country. Sunday mid-day sits down with Dr Dipankar Ghose, senior director — Biodiversity Conservation, WWF-India about what they hope to achieve with the sniffer dog training centre.