Under pressure from the lobby of hunters, the Punjab Government has allowed hunting of endangered species of blue bull and wild boars. A notification in this regard was issued by the government yesterday.

The state Minister for Forests, Mr Hans Raj Josan, when contacted, admitted that the notification had been issued for issuing permits for hunting the said species of animals in the state. As per the notification, hunting has been opened even in the ecologically sensitive kandi forest of the area.

The hunting of the wild boar has been opened in Ropar, Dasuya, Garhshankar, Dhar, Balachaur, Ludhiana, Pathankot, Dera Baba Nanak, Anandpur Sahib, Kharar, Ajnala, Tarn Taran and Patti subdivisions. The hunting of blue bull has been opened in Sangrur, Malerkotla, Mansa, Budhlada, Muktsar, Malout, Bathinda, Talwandi Sabo, Adampur, Payal, Jagraon, Ferozepore, Zira, Jalalabad, Fazilka, Abohar, Patiala, Nabha, Fatehgarh and Faridkot subdivisions.

As per the notification, the permit for hunting would be issued by the respective SDMs after receiving a resolution from the village panchayat, stating that the said species of animals were damaging their crops. The permit would be valid for two months, the minister said.

Interestingly, the government has kept the forest and the Wildlife Department out of the procedure for issuing permits for hunting.

Earlier also the government had initiated the move to open hunting under pressure from the lobby of hunters surrounding the Chief Minister. However, the move was stalled as the department did not have census of the animals for justifying hunting.

After that a hurried census of the animals was carried out by the Wildlife Department. As per the census, there are 8,000 blue bulls and 14,000 wild boars in the state. However, some of the members of the Wildlife Advisory Board, while speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the number of animals projected in the census was exaggerated.

They alleged that there were about 12,000 villages in Punjab. Wild boars existed largely in the Kandi areas comprising about 3,000 villages. If the census of the department was believed to be true, there should be four wild boars per village in the Kandi area. The boars should be seen roaming about in the forests. But the fact was that it was still very difficult to locate the animal in the forests.

Mr Sukhdeep Singh Bajwa, former Wildlife Warden, who caught an SDM in the poaching case, described the government move as unfortunate.

Environmentalists have flayed the government move. They have alleged that as per the forest survey of India report the forest cover in the state has gone down by 80,000 sq hectares. If the forest area has gone down to such an extent, how can you expect the animal population to grow to such a proportion that hunting can be justified.