In an apparent move to steer clear of the ongoing tussle between two Union ministers over the sanction given by the Centre to cull nilgai, declared as “vermin”, the Madhya Pradesh government has decid
In an apparent move to steer clear of the ongoing tussle between two Union ministers over the sanction given by the Centre to cull nilgai, declared as “vermin”, the Madhya Pradesh government has decided to capture and relocate the largest Asian antelope in protected areas instead of killing them.
“We are planning to capture the animal and relocated them in protected areas instead of culling them. We are devising a strategy for this. We plan to hire experts in the field to contain menace of nilgai, particularly in backward Bundelkhand region,” a senior forest officer of the state government told this newspaper on Monday.
“We believe culling of animals is not the right strategy,” he added.
The MP government was yet to respond to the advisory by the Union environment ministry on the matter of legal killing of animals found to be harmful to human beings and their properties.
The state forest department has set up a special committee to evolve a strategy in this regard.
“We want to launch a pilot project in Chhattar-pur, Shajapur or Morena in Bundelkhand region to ga-in expertise on how to capture the animal,” additional principal conservator R.P. Singh said.
The blue bulls cause large scale damages to standing crops in the poverty-stricken region every agriculture season, shattering the economic backbone of the local farmers.
The issue snowballed into a controversy when Union women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi took strong exception to Union environment minister Prakash Javedkar’s decision to sanction to culling of animals in man-animal conflict areas.
