Hunting trophies confiscated from different places in the country are decaying in a government store at Tikauli in Chitwan. The reason: bad management. All of them have been tucked into two rooms of a training camp at the forestry department's office. Even the staff are ignorant about the treasures inside. Visitors are discouraged, specifically because things are in absolute shambles.

Most of the contraband has fallen to pieces, many have been smuggled out. The hides of tigers, leopards, elephants, antelopes, rhinos lie in tatters. Officials say rhino horns were handed over to security agencies. The office does not even have an inventory of the confiscated contraband. In keeping with the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES), the government had made provisions for storage in a special museum. No one knows what happened to that plan.