Gurugram, Feb. 19 -- On the night of 6 December 2024, when Indigo Airlines flight 6E 1032 touched down in Chennai from Kuala Lumpur, it unloaded an unusual piece of luggage: nearly 5,200 red-eared slider turtles huddled in boxes, each smaller than the size of a palm.

This was the third attempt in 2024 alone to smuggle thousands of red-eared sliders at the Chennai airport, a species native to the US and Mexico and one of the most sought-after exotic pets in India today. It is classified as a Schedule IV species under the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, and its capture and sale are regulated by law.

Just weeks later, an eight-kilo live pangolin, one of the mammals most vulnerable to poaching, was seized in Assam, along with thousands of ...