Overview

• Union Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav rejected Kerala’s demand to list wild boars as vermin and to downgrade bonnet macaques under the Wildlife Protection Act
• Government data shows that 273 of Kerala’s 941 village councils are human-wildlife conflict hotspots and that wildlife attacks killed 919 people and injured nearly 9,000 since 2016
• Kerala’s draft amendments would permit the killing of protected species identified as maneaters when they enter inhabited areas and threaten lives or crops
• The proposal calls for decentralizing kill permits to chief conservators of forests and granting temporary vermin status for problem species
• Conservationists warn that relaxing protections could set a risky precedent and disrupt ecological balance in the state’s forests