The public spat between Union women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi, a well-known animal activist, and Union minister of state for environment Prakash Javadekar, accused by her of showing “a lust to kill”, renders the sensitive subject of the ecological process of management of animal species extremely complicated. Environmentalists are up in arms over the ministry using an old statute to grant permission to various states to cull “vermin”.
It is not a pleasant sight to see the blue bull (nilgai), the Rhesus monkey or the wild boar being eliminated in their hundreds. There are well-established international practices to control any unusual increase in animal population that has undue impact on people or farm produce. In India, any permission to cull is blatantly misused for commerce.
Man-animal conflicts are of greater concern than crop damage as hundreds of human deaths are caused every year, particularly by pachyderms and the occasional tiger that turns man-eater. Scientific processes are employed to contain crossings into human habitation. It would be in the interest of our national wealth if the Centre were to sit down with conservationists and experts in wildlife and come up with the guidelines in a far more scientific manner than envisaged when the law was written up years ago. A great amount of care is needed now when humans have already been pronounced guilty of exterminating many species.
