Kill 'em all! Forest department preparing action plan to stop wild boar menace

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Forest Department launched a one-year intensive action plan to eradicate wild boars entering human habitats. The programme, which has been announced as 'Agricultural Revival and Human-Wildlife Conflict Mitigation Mission', will be inaugurated by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in Kozhikode on the 31st.

The areas where wild boars have made their home in plantations and bushes will be cleared through the employment guarantee scheme. The pigs will be captured by digging trenches. The legality of killing those captured in this way, except for poisoning, the use of explosives or giving electric shocks, will be examined.

The Chief Wildlife Warden will exercise his authority to kill wild boars entering human habitats. This will be implemented through the collective efforts of youth clubs, farmers' groups, rubber tappers, job-guaranteed workers, shooters, forest department officials, and forest conservation committees under the leadership of local bodies.

The draft policy document also states that the procedures for shooting wild boars will be revised. Panchayats with severe wild boar issue should be identified and mapped. The draft document also includes suggestions such as increasing the remuneration for shooters, the cost of hiding the carcasses, developing an online platform to speed up the process of killing wild animals that pose a threat to populated areas, and implementing wide clearance and stranger's trenches in forested agricultural areas.