For the second time in the past four months, MP Robert Bruce has raised in Parliament the issue of Tirunelveli district farmers’ sufferings due to crop-raiding wild boars, which are protected by the Wildlife Protection Act.
Since the farmers having their cultivable lands within 25 km from the Western Ghats have to tackle natural calamities and wild animal invasion, their income is seriously impacted by the wild animals invading their ranches.
The farmers, who try to chase the animals back into the forest, are attacked by these animals, especially by wild boar herds. At least two wild boar attack incidents are reported in the district every month.
Even though the Tamil Nadu Government was promising the agriculturists of removing the wild boar from the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 as done by the Kerala Government, which enable the farmers to hunt down the crop-raiding wild boars, no step has been taken by the government in this direction till today.
Instead, the government announced that the trained forest department officials would shoot down the wild boars entering the fields situated 5 km away from the reserve forest boundary. And, this announcement is also yet to be translated into action even as the farmers have been left at the mercy of wild boars.
