Maneka Gandhi asks Kerala government to revoke order on culling wild boars

The decision of the Kerala government to empower local bodies to kill wild boars has triggered a row with animal rights activists including Lok Sabha MP Maneka Gandhi, raising concerns over the order.

At the same time, a section of farmers in Kerala has demanded further easing of norms to kill wild boars.

In a letter sent to Kerala forest minister A K Saseendran, Maneka urged that the order should be revoked as it posed a threat to the forest ecology and could also increase human-animal conflicts.

Meanwhile, the Kerala Independent Farmers Association (KIFA) demanded that the restrictions on the methods to be used for killing wild boars should be lifted, and unconditional permission should be given to farmers to kill wild boars that cause crop damage and harm people.

In the last one-and-a-half-years, around 2,600 wild boars have been killed in the state by following the due procedures, according to KIFA.

Maneka pointed out that wild boars were the only animals that eat bracken that prevent the growth of seedlings in forests by blocking sunlight. Moreover, wild boars’ scratching on the ground helps in the growth of plants.

She also said that the killing of wild boars could lead to animals like tigers entering villages as big cats prey on the suids. At Chandrapur in Maharashtra, about 60 tigers entered the nearby towns in a month after around 200 wild boars were killed after a forest minister’s order earlier, she said.

She alleged that a lobby of hunters raised the demand for killing wild boars.

KIFA leaders said that the forest department has already given the nod to kill wild boars within 24 hours. But the restrictions on killing wild boars using snares, electric fencing, poisoning, and explosives were posing a hurdle.

The Kerala High Court already gave unconditional permission to some farmers who approached the court to hunt wild boars. The farmers said that the state government should extend the benefit of that order to all farmers. The wild boars should be declared as vermin, and the restrictions on issuing gun licences to farmers should be eased, the farmers association demanded.