Where the 'vermins' fight for survival...

So what exactly is the situation when a species is declared ‘vermin’, I asked a lawyer working on environmental issues. We were discussing the recent government orders (and notifications) that allow hunting of select species. It is akin to a rat in your house — in other words, you can kill, eat or sell the species, I was told. So — for example — I can actually catch a nilgai (in districts of Uttarakhand where it is declared a vermin), tie it in front of my house, even beat it and it could not be questioned by law, I asked just to confirm. You are correct, came the reply.

The Pocket Oxford Dictionary refers to vermin as ‘mammals and birds harmful to game, crops’. The Wildlife Protection Act in India has 2 provisions that allow hunting. A senior lawyer interpreted them for us thus — Section 11 allows for hunting of an individual or a group of animals causing damage, and thus removes a problem. Section 62, on the other hand, allows for a species to be declared a vermin, and thus enables a species to be removed. Section 11 can be put to effect by the state itself, while Section 62 warrants the Central government to accept a request from a state.

While conversations on the subject continued, a senior wildlife conservationist said declaring species as vermin was taken up by the British to remove what were regarded as ‘nuisance’ species. “India was a country of wolves,” he said, “and the consequences of their putting a bounty to do away with the species are felt even today. Even tigers were considered vermin at one point of time.”

Can we do something about this, I press on. A press release during April 2016 pointed out to the government being eager to remove 422 archaic laws from the statute. A retired senior forest department official while discussing the topic looked up the list of species declared vermin. The Wildlife Protection Act refers to animals listed in Schedule 5 of the Act as vermin. The list contains 4 names — common crow, fruit bat, rat and mouse.

“Of these,” he said, “the fruit bat we know as a crucial pollinator today while the common crow is disappearing in many areas.” Section 62, in other words, allows select species to be shifted from other schedules (that offer high protection) to Schedule 5; the category with least protection. Do we then, in 2016, a world different both in terms of threats our wildlife face and our understanding of ecology, need this provision in our laws? Another crucial question he put up was why this provision (Section 62) was suddenly being used, in multiple states, when it has not been put to use since it came to force.

A campaign is in place to get these orders reversed; orders that are random and harbour immense potential to damage ecological cycles. Public Interest Litigations and applications under the Right to Information Act have been filed, articles written, letters written to the minister and meetings organised. Facebook posts brought forth questions like what happens when meat, hide and horns of species declared vermin in one state are sold in another? Do we have mechanisms in place to check wildlife trade arising on account of these orders?

One of the comments was stark and pertinent: How can a species causing maximum damage to the planet have the audacity to declare other species as vermin?