Animal Welfare Board gives Prakash Javadekar dos & don’ts list on culling

NEW DELHI: Days after animal right activist and minister Maneka Gandhi slammed the Environment ministry for permitting culling of monkeys, nilgai and wild boar in Himachal Pradesh, Bihar and Uttarakhand respectively, the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) has written a strongly worded letter to the Prakash Javadekar led ministry objecting to the ‘extreme action’ against animals that have “no voice and no vote”.

Asking the ministry to recall the three notifications and also hold back any further moves to declare any other animal species as vermin, the AWBI has said that the ministry’s approach of “pro-actively declaring various wild animals as “vermin”, requires “urgent reconsideration”.

In a communication sent to secretary, ministry of environment & forests- reviewed by ET the AWBI has reminded the ministry that it has “to proceed scientifically, rationally, and without arbitrariness”.



AWBI is a statutory advisory body on animal welfare under the environment ministry and had taken a strong stand against the ministry on permitting the bull taming sport Jallikattu in Tamilandu- the move drew the ire of the ministry besides a show cause notice from them.

“The step that the ministry has taken should actually have been a last resort, if other viable alternates fully explored and zealously implemented, had failed to yield results. It is also our understanding that no scientific study with respect to the population of the targeted species, i.e. the animals that have been declared as vermin, and the carrying capacity of the forests that are principally their habitat in the problematic zones, has been recently conducted. The reasons for the conflict do not seem to have been gauged or addressed and neither do the possible repercussions of the killing that has been unleashed, seem to have been taken into account”, said the communication sent by AWBI Chairman, Maj.Gen.(Dr.) R.M. Kharb.

The AWBI has pointed out how while erstwhile hunting rules mandated no hunting of pregnant/nursing mothers, young ones, specifics of guns and other humane considerations, the latest government notification implies vermin would be killed without discrimination, causing lots of sufferings to the wild animals.