Myth of the man-eater

Nothing much has changed after the shooting of tigress Avni (T1) by a private hunter in Pandharkawda in Maharashtra in 2018. Tigress Avni was declared a ‘man-eater' by the Forest department, and Maharashtra's Chief Wildlife Warden issued an order to eliminate her. Following this, a private shikari was ‘invited' by the Forest Department to execute her. Like everywhere else in our country, nepotism rules - and the hunter's son shot tigress Avni dead, and our honourable courts are yet to rule on the blatant violations of laws that marked this sordid saga.

The same private hunter was again summoned in 2023 by the Valmiki Tiger Reserve in Bihar to eliminate yet another tiger declared as a man-eater. Officials reports claim that the tiger was shot dead by officers of the Nepal Police, but unconfirmed reports claimed that the shots fired were not from the machine guns preferred by the Police, but more likely from a big bore weapon preferred by shikaris to kill large wild animals.

Let's first debunk the myth of man-eaters, which is propelled by our own innate, primordial fear of wild big cats. The term ‘man-eater' has no reference in our richly documented historical records, and seems to have been coined by the British colonists. To extract timber and to grow cash crops like tea, coffee and rubber, they used migrant labourers and elephants in the elimination of the forests. It was obvious they would not be able to work in the jungles safely unless the predators were eliminated. Branding a predator as a man-eater was sufficient justification to eliminate them. In those days, hunting of big game was popular amongst Indian Royalty, who usually had their private hunting grounds. Some of the rich and powerful at the time wished to indulge in this royal sport and would procure hunting permits from the wildlife wardens to shoot wild animals. Many popular hunters also wrote novels to attract foreign clients, for whom they would arrange hunting permits from the authorities.

Tigers, leopards and wolves are strictly carnivorous predators, and regularly hunt their prey. While they are supreme hunters, they are also excellent opportunistic scavengers who won't shy away from eating any meat, including their uncommon prey - humans. It is a popular myth encouraged by hunters/ writers, that once the predator tastes human blood it would seek only humans. Wild animals unlike humans don't have the luxury of being choosy about their food. They eat whatever they can get, be it their natural prey or easy prey like humans, human remains, or livestock that enter their forests illegally.

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Mrs. Indira Gandhi was a powerful political leader who took on the hunting mafia, and miffed many a Nawab and Raja in 1972 when she got hunting banned by promulgating the Wildlife Protection Act. Sadly, the legacy of the British Raj continues, and the authority to give permission for the capture or elimination of highly protected (Schedule-1) wild animals vests with a single officer - the Chief Wildlife Warden (CWW) of a State. Even the Supreme Court can't overrule the CWW once the order is given, as experienced by our NGO, Earth Brigade Foundation, which appealed to the apex court to stop the killing of tigress Avni. In what is a hangover from colonial times, uncannily, private shikaris exist even today, who use their influence to curry favour with both politicians and forest officials for being inducted into operations for the elimination of problem animals.

Forest departments regularly summon them to eliminate problem animals for another reason - the worrisome lack of trained wildlife veterinarians in government service. Forest departments continue to rely on ad hoc appointments of animal husbandry veterinarians, who either don't have the experience or expertise in specialized wildlife management. This is horrifying as inexperienced veterinarians, or those who are learning on the job, are employed to carry out the extremely stressful task of tranquilising wildlife in human-wildlife conflict situations. It's important to note here that India doesn't have a postgraduate degree veterinary course in wildlife management, which would include training in chemical immobilization & tranquilizing wildlife on the move. Many wild animals tranquilized by inexperienced veterinarians succumb to tranquilizer overdose. Some animals receive under-dosage, which results in injury to the animals in their drugged state, or to the human team members involved in the operation.

Surprisingly, our forest departments don't impart training to veterinarians in the use of tranquiliser guns, and neither do they train their staff in the usage of appropriate armed weapons for eliminating dangerous wild animals. Barring a handful of forests, there is no capacity building in creating trained wildlife rescue teams, with an auxiliary support system of wildlife trackers, elephants, mahouts, etc. In most of the tricky, high-pressure conflict situations, teams are formed on ad hoc basis, with limited success. Rarely is a Section 144 curfew strictly imposed by the civil authorities to keep mobs, quite often violent, under control, which would immensely help the forest department focus on their primary duty of wildlife rescue. The Forest departments, instead of seeking support from other state-run armed protection forces in such operations instead ‘invite' private shikaris who are obviously trigger-happy to shoot the wild animal for the thrill of a canned trophy hunting.

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In many cases, the wild animal is simply shot dead with the fabricated, clichéd narrative that the animal attacked the rescue team and they had to pump bullets into the animal in ‘self-defense'. The forest department staff are also collateral victims of violent angry locals when tempers are high during the conflict, which is a morale dampener - and the staff are often relieved when the conflict wild animal is shot dead. The lack of training and preparedness in the forest department is also evident in the barbaric manner in which wild animals are often beaten and caught by the department under the influence of cacophonous violent locals baying for the animal's blood. In India, except in a few tiger-bearing states, we have a very poor record of successful wildlife rewilding, and sadly, most of the captured wild animals - injured, maimed, or blind - remain in the misery of captivity for the rest of their lives. A minor relief was that the Avni campaign persuaded the NTCA, the National Tiger Conservation Authority to issue a guideline to all Tiger-bearing states that they will no longer use the term ‘man-eater' in any official communication to denote predators who may be dangerous to human life. However, the term is still preferred by news media reporters, as it resonates with their need for hyperbole and increased TRPs.

The new guidelines also include a directive to forest chiefs to employ only personnel from within the government to eliminate a problem animal, closing the doors on shikaris. A loophole has already been found to circumvent this, where stubborn forest officers invite shikaris as ‘tranquilizing experts', and the animal ends up dead, shot in ‘self-defense'.

Since Avni, Maharashtra has thankfully not given elimination orders for tigers, but many a tiger, especially sub-adult tigers from the Chandrapur region, have been captured by the forest department. Recently there were reports that these tigers will be sent from the over-crowded Government facility at Gorewada to a privately owned facility in Jamnagar. This seems to be a very motivated decision to systematically eradicate tigers from a landscape in which mining activities, especially coal mining, are rampant.

The most recent example of whimsical and unscientific practices and misdirected policies on wildlife management is presently being enacted in Bahraich in Uttar Pradesh. Human deaths have been attributed to wolf attacks, but there has been no scientific or forensic research and analysis to find the genuine culprits. A scapegoat has quickly been found: a pack of 6 wolves. Even the political leader playing to the vote bank is proposing ‘shoot-at-sight' orders for the wolves, which are, needless to say, vote-less and speechless. Strangely, the forest department seems to have no clue about the identity of the perpetrators who attacked/ killed women and children. I often wonder why a rape kit test is not mandatorily done on victims claimed to be killed by wild animals. There is hardly any effort to find the truth through scientific collection of evidence, and forensic and DNA analysis, as there is too much political pressure on the Forest Department to catch the first gullible suspects. The wolves have no say in the matter, and will sadly lose their freedom or their lives.

Another precious, endangered animal sacrificed at the altar of human indifference!

Dr. Sarita Subramaniam is the director of Earth Brigade Foundation.

The views expressed here are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.