No food in forests: Bears, langurs throng Uttarakhand apple orchards as native vegetation gets taken over by invasives

Subject: Environment

Section: Biodiversity

Context:

In Uttarakhand, invasive plant species are significantly impacting the forest ecosystem, affecting the food availability for wild animals and causing increased human-wildlife conflicts.
A study by the Wildlife Institute of India highlights the widespread invasion of non-native plants across two-thirds of India’s natural areas, posing a significant threat to ecosystems.

Details:

Horticulture farmers, particularly apple orchardists in Sukhi Top village, report rising incidents of bear and langur invasions into their orchards.
The lack of natural food sources in the forest is driving wildlife towards human settlements.
Other invasive wildlife include monkeys, Himalayan goral,barking deer, blue sheep and Himalayan tahr.
The increase in tiger population in Uttarakhand, from 442 in 2018 to 560 in 2023, has led to more tiger attacks on human settlements, particularly in the Terai region, which is rich in biodiversity.
The Ramnagar Forest Department faces challenges in managing human-wildlife conflict and controlling invasive plant species like Lantana camara and Congress grass. These species are replacing native grasses, forcing herbivorous wildlife to adapt by consuming lantana, which is harmful to their health.
Efforts to eradicate lantana include the ‘cut rootstock method’ and replacing it with local plant species.

WPA 1972:

The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, states that the central government can “declare any wild animal other than those specified in Schedule I and Part II of Schedule II to be vermin for any area and for such period as may be specified therein and so long as such notification is in force, such wild animal shall be deemed to have been included in Schedule V.”

The vermin conflict:

The damage to the national economy due to crop depredation by wild animals has never been computed. But for lakhs of farmers around India’s many protected forests, it is the biggest challenge to livelihood (not to mention the occasional threat to life).
Since 1972, the WLPA has identified a few species — fruit bats, common crows and rats — as vermin.
Killing animals outside this list was allowed under two circumstances:
- Under Section 62 of WLPA, given sufficient reasons, any species other than those accorded the highest legal protection (such as tigers and elephants but not wild boars or nilgais) can be declared vermin at a certain place for a certain time.
- Under Section 11 of WLPA, the chief wildlife warden of a state can allow the killing of an animal, irrespective of its status in the Schedules, if it becomes “dangerous to human life”.
The state governments took the decisions under Section 62 until 1991 when an amendment handed over the powers to the Centre.
The purpose was apparently to restrict the possibility of eliminating a large number of animals at a species level as vermin. Under Section 11, the states could issue culling permits only locally and for a few animals.
In recent years, however, the Centre has started using its powers under Section 62 to issue sweeping orders declaring species as vermin at even state levels, often without any credible scientific assessment.

Source: DTE