Maneka Gandhi objects to permission for culling animals damaging life, property

NEW DELHI: Maneka Gandhi, the women and child development minister and animal rights activist, and the Prakash Javadekar-led environment and forests ministry got into a tussle on Thursday over the killing of wild animals causing damage to human life and property.

Gandhi reportedly said she couldn’t understand the environment and forest ministry’s “lust for killing”, as she took issue with the permission it granted to Bihar six months ago to exterminate nilgai and wild boar, declaring them ‘vermin’ for causing harm to crops and humans.

An unfazed environment and forest ministry said its decision was to “scientifically mange human-wildlife conflict”. It cited the 500 deaths and crop damage caused by wild animals. In an interview to ANI, Gandhi asked why the environment and forest ministry was giving permission to several states to kill animals.

It all started with the environment ministry’s December 1, 2015, notification declaring the nilgai, or blue bull, and wild boar vermin and granting permission to Bihar to cull them for a year. As per the notification, the Bihar government reported harm to life and property “due to overpopulation of nilgai and wild pig in areas outside forests”.

Stating that the Centre considered it necessary to balance the population of these to mitigate the damage, the ministry declared the two vermin.

“Accordingly, these proposals have been examined and given permission for scientific management for a limited time for a specific area in the three states of Uttarakhand, Bihar and Himachal. Proposals of Maharashtra and Gujarat are still being examined,” SK Khanduri, inspector general of wildlife at the ministry, said in a statement.

However, animal rights activists opine culling is hardly a good solution. They said the chief reason for animals wandering into human habitations was shrinking of forests, disturbed forest ecology and hampered animal corridors.

The Federation of Indian Animals Protection Organisations has been protesting against the culling permissions, saying these moves are “neither based on structured information nor are there systems in place to monitor them”.