Kathmandu, May 13:

Police today arrested Ram Bahadur Gurung (50), a retired policeman working as a security guard with Honda Company in Sanepa, for trading a Eurasian Eagle Owl locally known as huchil. Gurung claimed that he found the bird on a tree near Chobhar on July 10, according to a police officer at Metropolitan Police Crime Division. “I used my shirt to catch it,” police quoted Gurung as saying. Gurung, a permanent resident of Chhatredeurali in Dhading and currently living in a rented apartment at Shankhamool, was arrested with the bird by the police team of the MPCD with the help of Wildlife Conservation Nepal. The Eurasian Eagle Owl (Bubo Nipalensis) is under legal protection in pursuant with Section 70 (A) of the Forest Act 1993 and Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Treaty 1975. Gurung can be fined up to Rs 10,000 or jailed for up to two years, according to Section 26 of National Park and Wildlife Conservation Act 1993. He has already been handed over to District Forest Office, Kathmandu.