Saseendran was conversing extreme anger over the death of a farmer in a tiger attack on January 13 in the Mananthavady forest range in the Wayanad district. The farmer, 50, was harshly injured and passed away due to a cardiac arrest as he was being passed along from one hospital to another. An allegation was also dispersed that there was a delay in his treatment.
A.K. Saseendran, who is the minister for forests and wildlife protection in the Indian state of Kerala, has been banged over his statement that his government might consider solutions including sterilization or culling to examine the number of tigers in the southern state.
However, his statement led to criticism from wildlife experts. Dr. Ullas Karanth, a conservationist and tiger expert, notified BBC that the population of tigers only raised by a thousand over the past five decades, adding the suggestion to cull them was not sound.
Following his death, farmers in the area opposed forest administrators and demanded that the tiger should be killed. Citing local media, the report said that A.K. Saseendran suggested culling tigers as a conceivable solution to the problem. The Kerala wildlife minister later notified the BBC that this recommendation came from locals who were a part of a meeting with political parties to examine a way out.
another Indian state-Maharashtra saw a wave in man-animal conflicts. From January to December last year, 105 people died due to attacks by wild creatures, mainly tigers and leopards. A wildlife expert Sunil Limaye told news agency IANS on January 7 that humans continue to violate wildlife territories though there are clear dos and don’ts in place, particularly in the regions adjoining animal sanctuaries/reserves dotting Maharashtra.
Another expert Praveen Bhargav said a recently amended section of the Wildlife Act did not permit the proclamation of tigers as creep, adding that the Kerala minister’s proposal was legally not justifiable. However, Bhargav, who is a retired member of the National Board for Wildlife, told BBC that there was a provision in the law, “in case of serious human-wildlife conflict”, where a state’s chief wildlife warden could authorize a tiger to be hunted” after being satisfied that it could not be tranquilized or translocated.
