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Environmentalist Madhav Gadgil in favour, wants rational hunting okayed

Gadgil, the chairman of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel, favoured the idea of culling of the big cats in Wayanad and suggested there should be licensed hunting outside India’s national parks.


Published: 19th January 2023 07:30 AM | Last Updated: 19th January 2023 07:30 AM



THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Forest Minister A K Saseendran, who caught the tiger by the tail by suggesting culling of the big cats in Wayanad as a remedy for human-animal conflicts, found an unexpected ally on Wednesday in noted environmentalist Madhav Gadgil.

Gadgil, the chairman of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel, favoured the idea and suggested there should be licensed hunting outside India’s national parks. “India is the lone country having a legislation for protecting wild animals. I think it is irrational, foolish, unconstitutional and nothing to be proud of. No other country protects wild animals outside of its national parks,” Gadgil told TNIE. As for licensed hunting, he said it did not reduce the wild animal population.

“The body of animals should be given to local people as compensation for their sufferings. In the US, Africa and Britain, people shoot wild animals. Rational hunting is implemented even in Scandinavian countries. The Ministry of Environment and Forest should hold talks with the local community on how many wild animals should be culled. The licence should be given properly,” he said.



Gadgil asked: “When a human is found to be a threat, necessary action is taken as per relevant sections of the IPC. Then why not kill a wild animal if it poses a threat to your life?” Gadgil also demanded scrapping of the Wildlife Protection Act (WPA), 1972, and bringing in a new legislation.

“A decentralised management plan should be implemented down to the ground level. India should implement the Biodiversity Act, 2002 which gives empowers local people to protect local biodiversity,” he said. He also said environmentalists who were against culling were anti-people conservationists. Meanwhile, forest officials said since tigers are included in the Schedule 1 of the WPA, the government should consider their rehabilitation to other sanctuaries and national parks where they are fewer in number.

“Kerala can approach the Rajasthan government since the Sariska National Park can accommodate a few tigers. Other states may also be interested,” a chief conservator of forest told TNIE. However, many environmentalists opposed the idea of culling and blamed the major characteristic changes that occurred in the forests in Wayand over the years for the disaster.

“The Wayanad wildlife sanctuary, north and south division, has very little forest cover,” said an environmentalist. “In Muthumalai, Bandipur, Nagarhola and Brahmagiri forests and parks, the forest has become drier. Water scarcity has also become acute. So, tigers usually come to Wayanad forests as it is the only place that has water and is suitable for their survival,” he said, adding that rehabilitating a tiger is not an option as it will lead to confrontation between the big cats over territory, prey and mating.

Wayanad Prakriti Samrakshana Samithi president N Badusha said the big cats were not posing a threat in Wayanad as was being propagated. He blamed organisations like the Kerala Independent Farmers Association (KIFA) for propagating falsehoods. “Since 2012, six people died in tiger attacks in Wayanad. Barring two incidents, all happened inside the forest. Over 25,000 cattle graze inside the forest, but no untoward incident has been reported,” said Badusha.

If it ever did open, I believe we would see a record price, higher than any other permit that has ever been sold. It's a wild guess, but I would not be surpried to see it go over a $1,000,000. I doubt they will ever be hunted..

https://thefederal.com/states/...-prof-madhav-gadgil/


Regulated harvest of tigers, elephants need of the hour: Prof Madhav Gadgil


In an exclusive interview with The Federal, the chairperson of Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel explains why regulated harvesting of wildlife can control their population and protect forest dwellers from wild animals

Rajeev Ramachandran
6:49 PM, 20 January, 2023


Gadgil says the Wild Life Protection Act of 1972 is in direct contravention of the Constitution of India as under it people are not free to defend themselves against marauding animals.

At a time when Kerala is reporting rising instances of tiger and elephant attacks on human settlements close to forests, Prof Madhav Gadgil, the chairperson of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel, says regulated harvest of the “marauding” species is the need of the hour. In a conversation with The Federal, Gadgil explains how the Wild Life Protection Act denies humans the right to defend themselves from animal attacks, and why India should follow in the footsteps of European and Scandinavian nations in legalising hunting.

Excerpts from the interview:

In view of the rise in human-animal conflict, culling is one of the options considered by the Kerala government to regulate population of wild animals. How do you look at this situation?

I don’t thing culling is the right word to use here. Population of wild animals will keep increasing if there are no regulatory factors, say like wildfire, to keep it in check. Similarly, the population of tigers and elephants will keep increasing unless there is harvesting, predominantly in the form of hunting by humans. In India, until 1972, there was large scale hunting of wild animals including tigers, elephants and lions.


There should be national parks and wildlife sanctuaries to protect these wild animals from hunting and allow their population to proliferate. But, these animals will escape when their population exceeds the carrying capacity of wildlife sanctuaries or national parks. This is apparently what is happening in the case of tigers. At this juncture, they should be harvested in a controlled manner.

Scandinavian countries like Norway, Sweden and other European countries have realised that wild animals are renewable resource and should be utilised through regulated harvest. In Sweden and Norway, the local communities are empowered to decide how to carry out the harvest. These countries adopt a truly rational approach towards wildlife protection, asserting that hunting is a wise, long-term utilization of renewable natural resources and they are globally at the top in both their environmental performance and happiness indices. At the same time, the freezers in the houses of many Scandinavians are full of meat of moose, reindeer, and even foxes.

India, however, is the only country which has this irrational system of putting a blanket ban on hunting for ever.

Is it practical to hunt down tigers and elephants, especially when the population of tigers has seen a steep decline over the years?

Didn’t we do it in the past? Salim Ali, a key figure in forging forest and wildlife management policies in independent India, was a remarkable man, but he used to hunt animals. I have seen leopard skins on the wall of his residence. There is no animal which should be unviolated, be it an elephant or a tiger. To be frank, biological diversity is not damaged by the hunting of birds or animals, but by other things like unregulated use of pesticide. Our rivers are full of lethal chemicals like mercury and cadmium. You are ignoring these and thinking of only elephants and tigers.

If hunting is legalised, won’t it affect the ecological balance, as there would be many excesses?

Nature has always been in flux; there never has been a balance of nature either on evolutionary or ecological timescales. Then there is the pseudoscientific theory that claims that forest ecosystems are where nature is properly balanced and that all problems result from humans’ recent intrusions into these ecosystems. This theory is seriously flawed because animals do not live in water-tight compartments.

You have been demanding re-examination of the Wild Life Protection Act for a long time now. Why?

First of all, the Wild Life Protection Act of 1972 is in direct contravention of the Constitution of India. Under WLPA, people are not free to defend themselves against marauding animals as even driving them out of their homes and agricultural field needs official permission. Yet Sections 100 and 103 of the Indian Penal Code give everyone the right to private defence of body and property. Wild pigs have on occasion killed people, and regularly trespass on farmers’ properties and rob them of their produce. Elephants do the same, and tigers kill people and rob farmers of their livestock and dogs.



Friends in law enforcement and judiciary have told me that WLPA is clearly not valid constitutionally. Put in simple terms, if a tiger is attacking you and your family, don’t you have the right to defend and retaliate? These people are not encroaching the forests – they are living there for several centuries. Now the tigers encroach into farmers’ property because there are too many of them in the forest.

The Centre is ignoring the demands of the villagers and settler farmers to declare the wild boar as vermin. Is there any rationale behind this?

The demand of farmers to declare wild boars as vermin is genuine. Let me be clear, wild boars should not only be declared vermin, but people should be given the right to kill and eat them whenever they come anywhere nearby.

Environmentalists and settler farmers in Kerala have started fighting over ecological issues, leading to a tense situation. Do you think environmental activism needs to be a little more people-friendly?

When urban nature conservation is concerned, there is no question of little more or little less people friendliness. As far as I know, they have complete contempt for the common people. I am sorry to say, you already have a divided society. These are people I personally know. They live in big cities and are rich. They can afford eating mutton, chicken and fish and drink whiskey, and at the same time give lecture on how people should be living. I invite them to spend two nights in some village where I have friends, where tigers are killing women who go out in the mornings and see how they are terrified of the tiger which may pounce upon them at any moment. Such nature conservationists should experience that life, before giving lectures about life.

quote:

If it ever did open, I believe we would see a record price, higher than any other permit that has ever been sold. It's a wild guess, but I would not be surpried to see it go over a $1,000,000. I doubt they will ever be hunted..

And if I had the means, I'd gladly fork it over for the privilege.

Heck, I would pay for a lottery chance.

I agree with the scientist. Give the tiger some value that the local community can appreciate as well as get rid of a problematic individual animal.

You could sell multiple annual licenses for $1M each and there would be a waiting line years deep.

And more tigers over time.

quote:

Originally posted by Austin Hunter:
You could sell multiple annual licenses for $1M each and there would be a waiting line years deep.

And more tigers over time.

Yep, I agree 100%

I know friends who have culled 700+ blue bull in the last few months and they have been made to bury them all. No value to anyone.

The Indian govt. have no clue about wildlife conservation, other than a blanket protection approach. With the result of this since 1972 the population of game has exploded in recent years with wildlife animal conflict increasing rapidly, including tiger, leopard and elephant. They have labelled wildboar and blue bulls as vermin and issue culling permits to appointed sharp shooters. Local villagers would be happy to eat the meat but the govt. sees otherwise!

The pro hunting voices are as usual muffled and the anti hunting groups like PETA and others are very strong in India aided by outside funding.

Its a SAD situation overall.

If they were SMART (they're not), this would be the fastest and most effective way of restoring a population of wild tigers to the world. Wildlife in India and some other Asian countries has been decimated by overregulation and endless poaching.

Whatever "conservation" benefit the pitiful amount of money animal rights groups give would vastly pale in comparison to someone paying $1million to hunt a tiger, and it would probably go for that much.