CULLING OF ANIMALS AND WPA 1972

CULLING OF ANIMALS AND WPA 1972

Subject: National Legislations

Context : Maharashtra on Sunday culled 40,000 poultry birds in Navapur in Nandurbar district, 340 km north of Mumbai, after cases of avian influenza or bird flu were confirmed in the four-layer poultry farms in the region.

Concept :

Culling and Wildlife Protection Act

• Wildlife Protection Act divide species into ‘schedules’ ranked from I to V.
• Schedule I members are the best protected, in theory, with severe punishments meted out to those who hunt them.
• Animals like Wild boars, nilgai and rhesus monkeys are Schedule II and III members — also protected, but can be hunted under specific conditionslike threat to human life.
• Animals like Crows and fruit bat fall in Schedule 5, the vermin category.
• Section 11(1)a of the Wildlife Protection Act (WPA) authorizes chief wildlife warden to permit hunting of any problem wild animal only if it cannot be captured, tranquillized or translocated.
• For wild animals in Schedule II, III or IV, chief wildlife warden or authorized officers can permit their hunting in a specified area if they have become dangerous to humans or property (including standing crops on any land).
• Section 62 of Act empowers Centre to declare wild animals other than Schedule I & II to be vermin for specified area and period.