After 70 wild boars killed, guidelines to be introduced for transparency

Questions, however, have been raised by wildlife activists about the operation, undertaken silently. The activists have pointed out problems of transparency that generally plague such operations.

The department had not kept the Honorary Wildlife Warden of the district Bandu Dhotre in the loop too.

Talking to The Indian Express, Shri Bhagwan said, “To ensure transparency, I will issue guidelines tomorrow. I will ask the officers concerned to involve wildlife NGOs, and even media, in all future operations and to have the operations videographed.”

However, Bhagwan added, “Sometimes officers on the ground need to take such decisions… I fully support it.”

Bhagwan has also directed Thakre to send the dead animals to Nagpur to feed animals kept in the recently inaugurated Gorewada Rescue Centre, instead of burying them as was done in Chandrapur.

Bhagwan said, “I am flooded with complaints about damages caused by wildlife. We need to realise that felling and culling have to be accepted as essentials of forest management.”

However, Thakre said, “It was not mandatory to inform NGOs or Dhotre. We have done panchnamas and also have the videos.”

“The problem has increased manifold in the district in the recent years. In 2014-15, of the 94 human injuries due to wildlife, 74 were in wild boar attacks. The corresponding figures in the current year, so far, are 177 and 137. We had to give compensations to the tune of 2.6 crore in 2013-14 and 3.7 crore in 2014-15. It is likely to cross 4 crore this year. We have over 4000 cases of crop depredation by wildlife.

This has caused a lot of anger among the village communities. That is why we have undertaken this operation,” Thakre said.

According to Bhagwan and Thakre, Shafat Ali is a well-known shooter who had been earlier engaged by many states in similar
operations.

“He has killed over one thousand blue bulls in Bihar and tigers, leopards and elephants in many other states. He is a tranquilising expert and trains forest staff in tranquilisation operations,” Thakre said.

Farmers suffering crop damages are allowed to kill wild boar and blue bull with due permission which is deemed given if not formally conveyed. “But practically it is not possible for them to do it. So they tell us to take the animals away and even offer money for that. So, we have decided to step in with this operation,” Thakre added.