HYDERABAD: The Telangana government on Tuesday issued a controversial order that delegates powers of Honorary Wildlife Wardens to around 12,700 Sarpanches across the State, who will now have a free hand to give permission to hunt wild boar. The order delegates these powers for a period of one year.
According to the GO, any farmer who is facing crop damage due to wild boar can submit a written complaint to the Sarpanch and if the Sarpanch finds the complaint to be genuine, after conducting an assessment of the location along with village elders and farmers, a Panchanama will be drawn permitting the hunting of wild boar.
The hunting is allowed only outside Reserved Forests and Protected Areas like sanctuaries and after killing, the entire carcass must be buried in the presence of the forest staff of the area.
Who can hunt
As per the GO, any hunter in the State who has a powerful gun and arms licence, can be hired by a Sarpanch to hunt the wild boar.Although the GO says that the person must be an “expert shooter”, there is no further explanation as to what makes one an expert shooter.
A couple of years ago, the State Forest Department formed a panel of hunters for the purpose of culling, whose services can be utilised for the purpose.Farmers from various parts of Telangana have been complaining of damages caused to their agricultural crops by monkeys and wild boar, to which Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has been promising a solution.
The problem is particularly severe in some areas. The Government Order (GO) mentions that wild boar have “..become dangerous to human life and property”.The Forest Department just last month launched a Monkey Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre in Nirmal to conduct the sterilisation of monkeys.
When Express spoke to various conservationists and wildlife activists, a chief concern raised was the alleged subversion of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. They allege that although the WLP Act allows the delegation of the powers of Chief Wildlife Warden to Honorary Wildlife Wardens, including the power to issue order to hunt a wild animal, the delegation can only be to those who are “subordinate to the Chief Wildlife Warden”.
The activists allege that a Sarpanch, an elected representative, is not a government employee subordinate to a Chief Wild Life Warden.Also in 2015, when the Telangana government allowed culling of wild boars, it had made it mandatory that the District Forest Officer must give permission, forest officers must be present during hunting and only people from the government’s panel of hunters could be hired.
Diya Banerjee, who had approached the High Court against the previous GO on culling of wild boars, points out: “The order is clearly in violation of laws and encourages hunting, which is against the Constitution itself. This order does not even adhere to the set guidelines on culling.”
Donthi Narsimha Reddy, an environmentalist, noted: “This is a mischievous order that plays to populism and does not offer real benefit, namely avoiding human-animal conflict. It is couched as a quick fix solution, but has a dangerous portent of allowing wildlife hunting parties, without regulation and restriction.”
Other issues raised were lack of any proper documentation on the losses caused due to wild boar attacks in the State, demarcation of regions where the problem is serious and issuing of a blanket order.