Like Pakistan, Culling Could Make Nilgais Extinct in India Too

Culling nilgai can make the species go extinct in India, as it already has in Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

About 200 Nilgai or Blue Bulls were shot dead in Bihar. (Photo: iStockphoto)

As the argument on culling nilgai, wild boar, and monkeys (rhesus macaque) reaches the Supreme Court, experts warn that large-scale culling could result in near-extinction of the animals, as has happened with the nilgai in neighbouring Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan.

Experts point out that culling these animals, after labelling them “vermin”, would also shrink the prey population of predators and make the human-animal conflict more ugly.

Overpopulation of a Species Doesn’t Happen in Isolation

Nilgai and wild boars are ‘very valuable’ prey of leopards, wolves, tigers, hyenas and even jackals and dholes. Monkeys too are the leopard’s prey.

(Photo: The Quint/iStock)

Culling is wrong and will bring these animals on the verge of extinction. Once they are termed vermin and targeted for culling, people would soon start hunting them for sport, or poach for their skin and meat.

VP Singh, Zoologist and Senior Research Fellow at Dudhwa National Park

In Uttar Pradesh, a senior minister has also gone on record to suggest that Nilgai meat tastes good and that the animals are already being hunted down or poached.

Following regressive hunting in the name of crop protection, the Nilgai has already become extinct in Bangladesh. The handsome animals are only sparsely found in Nepal and Pakistan.

“By hunting we are moving against conservation,” Kartick Satyanarayan from Wildlife SOS, who is working on bear conservation methods in Alaska, USA, told IANS.

Hunter-turned-wildlife photographer Anant Zanjale explains the reason behind the large population of these animals.

Presence of any animal in a region is for a reason. They multiplied because their predators were killed and their abodes were destroyed for farming.

Anant Zanjale, Hunter-turned-Wildlife Photographer

Lack of Evidence to Prove Certain Species as “Vermin”

Describing the plight of farmers as “equally genuine”, the wildlife experts suggest methods like controlling population by sterilisation or vaccination but only in a scientific and flock-wise manner; change in cropping pattern and solar powered fencing.

Killing 200 Nilgai or wild boar and monkeys for protecting crops would not change anything. Nature is so unique that any vacuum created is filled soon,

Kartick Satyanarayan, Wildlife SOS

The Nilgai which strayed into Lutyens in Delhi recently. (Photo: ANI screengrab)

As per the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, Nilgai or Blue Bull along with the wild boar are protected under schedule-3 and Rhesus Macaque under schedule-2. To declare them vermin, the species are shifted to schedule-5. Wild boar had already been declared vermin for a year in Uttarakhand, without clarity on the culling method.

There is no scientific evidence that they are vermin. The wild boar and Nilgai were declared vermin without doing a predator census in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar or Uttarakhand.

Kartick Satyanarayan, Wildlife SOS

Alternatives to Cullings

Experts say there are very simple “alternative ways” of tackling the issues of farmers.

A Bengaluru-based company offers a home-made acoustic device called ‘Harmony Q Series’, that works on the sound of predators to keep animals away from fields. The device costs Rs 9,000 for a four-acre plot.

Elephant, Nilgai and wild boars dislike pungent smell of lemon grass, mint, tulsi. Growing them as hedges keeps the animals away

Nikung Sharma, PETA

Other local remedies include spraying a mixture of donkey’s excreta with cow urine on the fields, which would keep Nilgai away, as it would smell like a rival Nilgai flock.

In Rajasthan, using audio cassette tapes as fencing helps keep Nilgai and wild boar away as the shine of the metallic tapes scares them. This practice is being successfully followed by the Tharu tribe in the Terai region, on the India-Nepal border.

Translocation of the animals is another method that has shown success. Around 5,000 Blackbucks were translocated in Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in 2011 within the state after the animals started causing heavy damage to crops.

We must remember that when it comes to nature, only the sustainable solutions work. Culling is certainly not one of them

Kartick Satyanarayan, Wildlife SOS