Srinagar: A video showing two men severing the head of a protected Astore markhor (Capra falconeri), a species of wild goat, with an axe inside the snow-covered Kazinag National Park in north Kashmir has prompted an outcry and calls for an independent probe into the alleged poaching incident.Allegations of markhor poaching have surfaced at a time when Jammu and Kashmir’s wildlife department is set to carry out the annual census of the flare-horned animal, which is under threat from habitat loss, grazing and other activities.A senior wildlife department official in Jammu and Kashmir said the controversial video, which has emerged for the first time, was shot in February 2022, after a team of trekkers and wildlife department officials came across the animal’s corpse. He said it “seemed to be a case of leopard predation”.The official told The Wire that a wildlife department team visited the area on February 27 that year, and the skull was removed from the animal and preserved for research purposes at Dachigam National Park.He said a fact-finding inquiry at the time ruled out the involvement of poachers in the incident.Also read: In Himalayan Kashmir, Migratory Birds Fly Into Poaching and Wetland Loss“A report was duly submitted to the then wildlife warden (north) along with photographic evidence, which is on record. The staff had shot the video and left the rest of the carcass in the field,” the official said, requesting anonymity.The 53-second video, which has appeared in public for the first time, shows a wildlife official in the Mithwain area of the snow-covered Kazinag park, carrying a small axe in his right hand, bending over the animal lying motionless and bloodied near a tree.The official repeatedly strikes the neck of the protected animal with the axe, while another official holds the skull in place by gripping its horns with both hands.At least three officials can be heard speaking with each other in the video. At the end, the official holding the horns tells the others that the carcass should “vanish”. “Is one minute (of video) enough?” the man filming asks.“Yes,” the official replies, repeating his assertion about disposing of the carcass.Raising questions over the “alleged poaching incident”, a group of civil society activists in Jammu and Kashmir on Friday (January 16) demanded an “independent” and “time-bound” inquiry.Protected in India under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, the Astore markhor is among the world’s largest wild goats, with distinct corkscrew-shaped horns.It is listed as ‘near threatened’ on the International Union for Conservation of NatureIUCN Red List of Threatened Species and, in India, it is found only in the Pir Panjal region of Jammu and Kashmir.The Jammu and Kashmir Right to Information (RTI) Movement, a transparency group headed by activist Sheikh Ghulam Rasool, led the call for an inquiry into the alleged role of wildlife officials and unnamed “NGO partners and community-based programme operatives” in the incident.However, the wildlife department official cited above said, “The video is being maliciously presented as a poaching case by some NGOs with vested interests to malign the conservation efforts being put in by the department.”The 2025-26 markhor census is about to begin in Kazinag National Park, Hirpora Wildlife Sanctuary and Tatakutti Wildlife Sanctuary in Jammu and Kashmir.The census is carried out in winter months, when the animals move to lower elevations due to heavy snowfall in the upper reaches, making sightings easier and the research more reliable, a wildlife official said.An official from the Wildlife Trust of India said they have been working with Jammu and Kashmir’s wildlife protection department on markhor conservation and census activities for nearly two decades.Questioning the involvement of private NGOs in markhor conservation, Rasool said in a statement issued jointly with the Forest Rights Coalition of Jammu and Kashmir, Gujjar-Bakarwal Youth Welfare Conference, and two other civil society groups that the wildlife department has become “a rubber-stamp institution, used to legitimise questionable decisions, cover up failures and protect entrenched interests”.Also read: J&K: Poaching Continues Unchecked Despite Conservation AttemptsTerming the association “the monopolisation of wildlife conservation”, the statement alleged that the government was “repeatedly” awarding “projects and funding” to “a handful of NGOs … without competitive processes, transparency or public scrutiny”.“This NGO-official nexus has converted conservation into a funding industry, marginalised local communities and independent experts, suppressed dissent and critical evaluation and used crises and alleged threats to wildlife to attract more funds without accountability,” the statement said.The civil society groups also demanded an “independent” audit of the funds spent on markhor conservation and recovery programmes in Jammu and Kashmir through NGOs, consultancies, and other donor-funded interventions.The wildlife official, however, denied wrongdoing. “It is a case of NGO rivalry because the markhor census is around the corner. There has been no wrongdoing by the department. We are open to any inquiry,” he said.The Astore markhor is the national animal of Pakistan and one of three subspecies of wild goat found in the Hindu Kush region, distinguished by their twisted horns.In 2025, Pakistan stunned the hunting world when a single permit for an Astore markhor in the Gilgit-Baltistan region was auctioned for USD 3,70,000, the highest fee ever paid for a hunting licence anywhere in the world.