Activists: Order fraught with risk
The decision of the government to allow gram sarpanches to decide on culling of wild boar could result in uncontrolled and unchecked killing of the animals, and could prove to be counter-productive, it has been warned.
“The long overdue order is good from the farmers’ perspective. But, as a conservationist, I see a flaw. How will the understaffed forest department keep track of how many boars are shot? By who? And where,” Shafat Ali Khan told Deccan Chronicle. Pointing to the perils of unchecked hunting of wild boar, as the orders allow sarpanches to hire anyone with a licensed gun that can fire bullets capable of killing a boar, he said it should be remembered that “40 per cent of leopards’ prey base is sub adult wild piglets. Nearly
Wanaparthy district, said.
“The cost of getting a shooter who is approved by the forest department to 50 per cent of leopards in the state are, nowadays, outside the forests, in human landscape. Excessive culling will rob their prey base triggering further man animal conflict.”
He said, “a balanced, scientific culling is a tool of conservation. Overdoing it, I foresee, could be counterproductive.”
According to Pervaram Santhaji, a licensed shooter empanelled by the forest department for culling of wild boar, the government should have not allowed the freedom to call anyone with a licensed gun. “Not everyone with a gun is a good shot. What if they shoot someone accidentally, or some other wild animal? Who will be responsible for the fallout? Anyone called in for the culling must at least be certified as a good target shot by the Telangana Rifle Association or state police,” he said.
the
the village, the expenditure incurred by him for the shooting etc., will work out to anywhere up to `10,000 a day. This will put us in a spot as we expect multiple demands from farmers for culling boar that attack their fields,” she told Deccan Chronicle. This is the season when most farmers plant groundnut, a crop that the boars can destroy in a single night over a few acres, she added.
In Kumaram BheemAsifabad district, Pale Sudhakar, sarpanch of Agarguda in Penchikalpet mandal, said the order was the most useful one so far in the farmers' battle against wild boar. He recalled how he had led a protest last September with 200 villagers demanding that the forest department do something about the wild boar depredations.
“The forest officers keep telling us that our village in in the forest, and that we are in the land that belongs to wild animals. Sometimes they tell us even the air belongs to the forest and are very dismissive of our problems,” he said.
“Whenever there is wild boar damage to crops, they say they will give `1,200 per acre as compensation. It costs `50,000 to `60,000 per acre of cotton, which the boars raid to eat the cotton bulbs when they are raw. What use is ``1,200 to us against what we actually spend,” he asked.