Culling: A year of notifications and debates

The Toll of Ambiguity in the Government’s Culling Orders

This piece finds place on The Wire

Please find the edited version on The Wire here

The unedited version in text below

Thanks are due to Kartik Shanker, Abi Tamim Vanak, Arpan Sharma, Vasudevan Mukunth, The Wire and Dharmendra Khandal.

The scenario.

Media extensively covered the debate around culling during May and June 2016. A spat between two cabinet ministers underscored the sound and fury. The Supreme Court has since refused to ‘Stay’ the Central Government notifications allowing for Nilgai, Rhesus Macaque and Wild Boar to be declared vermin under section 62 of the Wildlife Protection Act (WLPA); Bihar, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh were the states affected.

We have very little understanding on how the situation has shaped in these states post the culling decisions. This also stands true for Maharashtra and Telangana where the state governments (under section 11(b) of WLPA) have permitted culling. Critical questions remain unanswered; from the number of animals killed to whether culling has had an impact on the conflict situation?

Bringing out notifications and orders is apparently easier done than comprehending the complexities of human – wildlife conflict and acting on the same.

Madhya Pradesh has put to use Boma, a technique used in Africa, to capture and move Nilgai to forests. The use of helicopter and horses resulted in media excitedly using lines like ‘a scene resembling hallmark cowboy movies of Hollywood’. The number of Nilgai and conflict locations the forest department would be able to address using this method is a question. Also, while appear to have colour marked the animals captured what, one wonders, prevents these red coloured Nilgai to venture into the crop fields from the Wildlife Sanctuary they are released at. Above all, is this a financially viable option for a country like ours?

Karnataka has allowed culling of Wild Boar across the state. A conservationist who did not want to be named shared that no one from the Bangalore wildlife community on his facebook list even shared of the news leave aside discuss it. People who emotionally participated in debates on the elections in USA were silent on this decision that impacted wildlife in their state. Ritwick Dutta in his article, ‘Silence of the Conservationist’, June 2015, had written ‘The community has become rather silent of late. The silence of the conservationists is a cause of concern. . . Keeping silent is going to be a giant step towards a silent forest’.

Himachal Pradesh decided to pay Rs. 500/- for killing a Rhesus Macaque and yet the people did not kill the ‘vermin’ species. The state then contemplated entrusting the task to its two eco-battalions which otherwise ensure conservation of its urban forests. It also came up with an audacious plan to translocate the monkeys to states of Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh. In other words it is still struggling. What impact this would have on the ecology of those forests and where these dense forests occur in these states, amidst onslaught of oil-palm, dams and other developmental threats, warrants another discussion altogether!

Image Courtesy: Tiger Watch

Irony

Discussions on culling had moments that were difficult to comprehend especially when we consider our claim to be leaders of wildlife research in the region. They could have made for good humour if only they were fiction.

Nagaland and Himachal Pradesh discussed exchanging Rhesus Macaques and Asian Elephants. Just to clarify, not for zoos but for the wild.

Supreme Court had asked each of the three petitioners to make representations to the MoEFCC. In reply to one of these representations the MoEFCC states ‘Blue Bull (Nilgai), Wild Boar or Macaque are known as not very preferred prey either even within the forests’. A couple of days later, in the Court, the petitioners were busy presenting the ‘Status of Tigers, Co-predators and Prey in India’ reports, besides other documents, to the Court. These documents by the Wildlife Institute of India and National Tiger Conservation Authority, both affiliated to MoEFCC, mention Blue Bull and Wild Boar as tiger prey!

Image Courtesy: Tiger Watch

Debate

Where does the wildlife conservation versus animal welfare debate stand amidst these developments? During earlier months each of the group had blamed the other. The animal welfare set-ups had complained of conservation fraternity not taking a stand on an issue as critical as this; most large conservation organizations across the country were silent. The wildlife conservationists on the other hand had accused the welfare group of getting emotional and not being logical; of focusing on the individual and not the species. This author talked with few people to touch upon the nuances.

Wearing his ecologist's hat, Kartik Shanker of ATREE is of the view that the antipathy to culling stems from strong animal rights perspective, that is often antithetical to conservation and wildlife management. In other words we need to have a more pragmatic approach to wildlife conservation. The issues he pointed out that need to come on the discussion table are whether culling is preferred to hunting/harvest, given the benefits provided by the latter, and whether culling is an ecologically and economically cost-effective solution in the medium term. 

Abi Tamim Vanak (also of ATREE), suggests that a sound and robust scientific management plan needs to be put in place where each of the different types of interventions can be systematically evaluated using advanced modelling and decision support tools rather than ad hoc lets try this that and the other. To draw an analogy, surgeons needing to operate on a complex cancer growth do not randomly cut here and there. They use the latest MRI and other scanning technology to identify the scope of the problem, weigh the risks and benefits of each approach, and then come up with the a plan of action that has the best prognosis. Then a team of experienced and qualified specialists perform the various tasks necessary to ensure a successful surgery. This is then followed up with an intensive monitoring protocol to evaluate if the surgery has been successful in it’s outcome! And even then, success is not guaranteed. So how can you imagine that ad hoc culling or capturing or other mitigation measures are likely to be successful if this entire chain of evaluation, planning, execution and monitoring are not put in place!

On the other hand Arpan Sharma of FIAPO, federation of animal welfare organizations, and one of the petitioners in Supreme Court, said that they absolutely opposed to killing of animals as a means of controlling what is essentially a problem created as a result of treating animals and nature as objects of human use. People have ravaged nature - causing imbalances that are now being sought to be addressed by killing everything in sight. Further, there is little clarity on the number of animals that exist, which groups or individuals from this population are actually in conflict and what is driving that conflict. On top of it there is no mechanism in place to ensure that the conditions stipulated by the culling orders are adhered to. It is a free for all situation coupled with ambiguity. 

There appears to be an agreement on the need to do away with the kind of knee jerk reactions we have seen during the past year and get a clear picture of the situation on ground.

Way ahead.

Either lens we look at the issue with, one year down the line from the initial notification we have achieved little success. The problem persists.