Why some experts see hunting as a better way to save wildlife

Tigers killed dozens of people between April 2021 and March 2022 in Maharashtra alone. Lions have been found roaming the streets in hundreds of Gujarat villages. Man-animal conflict has never been this bad in living memory. Should we make more laws and reserves for wild animals, or do something else?Some wildlife experts who have formed a discussion group called “Wild Game Pan India” are advocating a radical alternative. They say India should legalise hunting to balance the population of wild animals. It should be made clear here that this is not TOI’s view, and the paper does not endorse it.Medium108405526 Hunting To ConserveThe game hunting idea is not without precedent. The group says ‘legal conservation hunting’ is practised across Africa, and they have asked the government to implement it in India so that the revenue from hunting can be ploughed back into conservation, making wildlife management “sustainable”.H S Pabla, former principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF-wildlife) in Madhya Pradesh and author of several books, strongly feels India’s wildlife conservation model is flawed. “Wild animals kill and maim thousands of people and destroy millions of acres of crop lands in our country, and we still want more and more wild animals and want them everywhere. We spend billions on their protection and want nothing in return.”Medium108405527 What could animals possibly give us in return? Pabla says tourism and hunting. And while tourism is “reluctantly” allowed, hunting is a legal taboo in India. “Wild animals should be an asset, not a danger and a liability for the people, especially because we are too poor a nation to afford a costly and dangerous fancy,” he says.How would legal hunting work, and how would we ensure that like the cheetah long ago, more species are not wiped out? Pabla says hunting can make wild animals economically valuable. “Sustainable use of wildlife is the only viable conservation strategy. In any case, wild animals are always hunted, illegally if the law does not allow it.”Medium108405529 As for ensuring that animal populations are managed, not annihilated, he says we need to allow private and community ownership of wild animals and wild lands so that our people can make a living off of them.Wildlife conservationist Dr AJT Johnsingh agrees with Pabla. “(Animal) populations causing problems to people should be controlled to benefit the people…. We have to look at conservation from the viewpoint of the local people. If they say wild pigs are a problem, efforts should be made to control the problem. In Kerala, the forest department kills wild pigs, but they bury the carcasses. The shot pigs should be auctioned for their excellent pork, and the money should be given to the farmers in whose field the pigs were shot.”For example, the hunting of wild pigs and blue bulls in croplands could yield an annual income of more than Rs 600 crore in Madhya Pradesh alone.Medium108405531 Namibian ModelThese experts are in favour of adopting the Namibian model. Namibia made news last year when it shipped cheetahs to India, but experts see it as a model for monetising wildlife. While legal hunts are variously known as recreational hunts, management hunts, cull hunts, safari hunts, trophy hunts (now controversial), the Namibians call them conservation hunts.Wildlife consultant and former member of National Biodiversity Authority, Rajeev Mathew, says, “Ecologists, conservation biologists and wildlife economists specialising in the utilisation and monetisation of wild products, and people with local knowledge and field experts should be consulted.”He says while India’s Wildlife (Protection) Amendment Act 2021 has nothing new to offer on wildlife conflicts, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is looking at liberalising free trade in game meat.Medium108405532 ‘Animals Are Invaluable’But many retired Indian Forest Service officials and NGOs oppose the idea of game hunting. Telangana’s former PCCF, P Raghuveer, says, “A 2017 study by an Indo-Australian team found that the stock benefit of the six tiger reserves they studied was $230 billion. The study concluded that saving two tigers yields a capital benefit of Rs 520 crore, and if we extrapolate the data to the 2,226 tigers in the country the benefit is a staggering Rs 5.7 lakh crore.”Medium108405533 Raghuveer says investing more in these catchment areas is economically wiser as the return on investment is 356 times. “Unfortunately, the intangible benefits from conserving wildlife are often ignored and people ask what they are getting by saving wild animals. The question to be asked is, what happens if all the wild animals become extinct and all the forests vanish.”He disagrees that killing wild animals increases their monetary value: “Many wild animals get killed in road accidents, poaching, natural calamities, etc…. In some African countries, trophy hunting may be an important tool to generate revenue, but it is not a conservation strategy by itself. This model does not suit India.”Medium108405534 Raghuveer says African countries like Botswana, Kenya and Zambia have banned trophy hunting after seeing its ill-effects, such as the reduction in genetic diversity, drastic changes in reproductive patterns of species, and the adverse impact on ecosystems.Besides, conservation hunting will not work in India because “many of the wild animals are sacred and revered in India. So hunting them will hurt religious sentiments,” says Imran Siddique of Hyderabad Tiger Conservation Society. Also, regulating legal hunting with understaffed forest departments will be difficult, he adds. “India doesn’t need African models as we have other sources of income. What happened in Africa was colonial conservation. India has global commitments towards wildlife conservation.”