Farmers may get nod to shoot boars

Thiruvananthapuram: Forest minister K Raju has said that the state government is actively considering the option of allowing farmers with licenced guns to terminate wild boars, which attack farms or pose a threat to life and property.
“As per the existing government order, only forest personnel assigned by the chief wildlife warden can shoot down the trouble making wild boars. The order could not be implemented efficiently. Now, the government has received a new proposal for making the required amendment to permit farmers to shoot them down,” the minister told the assembly on Wednesday, while replying to a calling attention motion by P J Joseph on the issue.
Confronted by an increased population of wild animals and rising instances of man-animal conflicts along forest fringes, the government in December 2018 entrusted Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun and Periyar Foundation to conduct a comprehensive study on the issue which would also be covering the possibility for declaring wild boars as vermin.
“The report will be submitted in a year, and till then the government will need to follow the Forest Protection Act of 1972,” the minister said.
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