Wild Boar culling: SC seeks reply from Centre, Tamil Nadu

The Supreme Court today sought a reply from the Centre, Tamil Nadu government and the state forest officials on a plea alleging indiscriminate culling of wild boars by neglecting guidelines issued by the state government.
A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud issued notice to the Centre, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister E K Palaniswami, state Chief Wildlife Warden and other forest officials on the plea which also sought direction to conduct scientific survey before issuing culling orders.
The petition, filed by advocate Anupam Tripathi, alleged that an all-party meeting chaired by state chief minister on June 22 had decided to cull and destroy wild boars in 11 district forest divisions.

The plea further claimed due to the notification, ordinary citizens were killing wild boars by grossly neglecting the guidelines issued along with the notification.
"Pass necessary orders prohibiting the local villagers and local communities from killing of the Wild Boars. That guidelines should be issued that any sighting of Wild Boars in the 11 forest divisions should reported to the Forest Officers rather than being hunted by local villagers," the plea said.
"If such uncontrolled killing of Wild Boars is continued, that would result in loss of bio mass for various carnivorous animals and they would eventually end up entering human habitats for food and other resources," it said.

The petition further alleged that after the state government declared the Wild Boars as 'Vermin', there were specific instruction for their killing and disposal of their caracass.
As per section 62 read with section 12 of The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 prohibits killing of any Wild animal until declared as 'Vermin' as the animal will be deemed to be listed under the Schedule V of the Act, in lieu of which the same animal can be killed if it causes any harm to human or property.
The petition said that section 62 requires declaration of 'Vermin' by conducting a proper scientific survey which was omitted when the notification declaring Wild Boars as 'Vermin' was issued.