Dear Animal Lovers,

Your action is needed today; to protect the Wild Boar from being added to the vermin list.

The recent announcements by the Tamilnadu Government forest department , Worried at the increase in the number of cases of wild boars destroying crops over the last few years, the state government has allowed shooting of the animals in Tiruvannamalai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Tiruppattur, Vellore, Hosur, Erode (Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve) and Salem districts.

The culling of the animals, Chief Wildlife Warden P C Tyagi told TOI, will be done only by range officers and their subordinates under the order that was issued on June 22 and which comes into effect on Saturday .

Wild boar status:

Wild boar is protected under wildlife protection act 1972 and is covered under schedule 3 of the act. This timid species are often misunderstood. This controversial species also needs further specific legislation to protect very own survival. For the fact that they are disturbing the crops a total government nod to treat them as vermin will only result in elimination of this species from our polluted forests and its buffer zones. Further there is no major scientific study on the hapless animal which is usually ignored during wildlife census due to their large presence.

Wildlife activists and biologists have already termed the concept of vermin elimination as a disaster to ecosystem, but farmers opine the move would help them to enhance the crop yield in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and North India where the crop damages are high due to these animals.

Why wild boar needs to be protected:

Big predators like Tiger and leopard at times rely on wild boar and removal of them from the protected list will result in hunting thereby affecting the food chain of predators. The old animals or lactating felines at times require more feed and during such times the wild boar is easy prey for such animals. Even for sub adult leopards, tigers and jackal they need boar as an alternate in their food chain.

The state governments are already providing compensation for the farmers if wild animals including elephant and boar damage their crops and this system should be continued with more early release of compensation. Passing orders to farmers will entertain hunting and boar will end in the plates of meat consumers.

Reports of wild boar damaging forests and agricultural fields have to be understood in detail. These animals stray into agricultural lands due to depleting forests. Further reduction in predator populations also influxes the breeding of boar. This is a scientific issue and needs to be addressed with ecological solutions.

While the economical damage of the boar are only consider they play the role of ingesting crops, dropping waste that are rich in nutrient which increase the soil richness, which is otherwise polluted through pesticides and insecticides.

Please write to the Tamilnadu Government right now and ask them to stop the Wild Boar Killing.

For Animal Rights,

Director

SCAN FOUNDATION

Jayapradha Centre for Endangered Species Conservation and Natural History.