Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972
- The Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 is an Act of the Parliament of India enacted for protection of plants and animal species.
- The Act provides for the protection of wild animals, birds and plants; and for matters connected there with or ancillary or incidental thereto.
- Reforms done under the Act:
- Increase in designated national parks and wildlife sancturies
- The act established schedules of protected plant and animal species
- Hunting or harvesting these species was largely outlawed
Permissions for hunting wildlife:
- The Wildlife Act empowers every State’s Chief Wildlife Warden to authorise hunters to cull animals in a region where they are a proven nuisance.
- Wildlife laws also consider hunted wildlife as ‘government property’ and impose restrictions on how these carcasses must be disposed.
Schedules:
- Under this act, an all India list of protected species is published.
- It has six schedules which give varying degrees of protection.
- Schedule I and part II of Schedule II members are the best protected, with severe punishments meted out to those who hunt them.
- Schedule III and IV members are also protected, , but the penalties are much lower.
- Schedule V members fall in the vermin category, which may be hunted. It includes crows , fruit bat, mice and rats.
- Schedule VI members includes specified endemic plants that are prohibited from cultivation and planting.
Note:
- Schedule II, III and IV species can be hunted under specific conditions. It includes Wild boars, nilgai and rhesus monkeys
Declaration as Vermin
- Declaration of an animal species as ‘vermin’ means that those who kill these animals here will, for a year after these notifications come into effect, not be subject to the jail terms and fines that hunting these animals typically invite.
