Farmers in Coimbatore district are demanding the Tamil Nadu government to take immediate measures to control crop damage caused by wild boars, in the wake of the recent visit by a panel from the State to Palakkad in Kerala to study the culling practice.
While crops damaged by wild elephants come to the attention of authorities easily, farmers struggle to get compensation for damage caused by wild boars, they say.
D. Prabhu, a farmer from Thadagam in the district, said there was a decrease in the cultivation of crops like bananas in places close to forests in fear of wild boars.
At the early stages of cultivation, wild boars gouge out the tender bulb of banana saplings to eat it. As the trees near the harvesting stage, they target the bananas.
“Standing on their hind legs, adult wild boars reach up to two-three feet and cut the trunks with their strong jaws. The top heavy portion of the trunks fall and they eat bananas. While elephants mostly eat the tender stem inside the trunk, wild boars eat the raw bananas completely”, Mr. Prabhu explained the crop raiding pattern.
Another farmer from Thondamuthur said that wild boars caused more damage to bananas than wild elephants. “They can damage around 10 banana trees a night in a plantation and within a month, they cause significant damage to an acre of banana trees,” the farmer said.
P. Kandasamy of Tamilaga Vivasayigal Sangam, a non-partisan association of farmers, said that coconut farmers were also incurring loss as wild boars break open fallen coconuts and eat them.
“Due to the shortage of labourers, coconuts that are harvested and naturally fallen are often left in plantations. They become easy meals for wild boars,” he said.
He wanted the Forest Department to cull wild boars that enter human habitations and cause damage to crops, as being done in Kerala.
“The Forest Department in Kerala has empowered local bodies to cull wild boars. The Wildlife (Protection) Act gives powers to the Chief Wildlife Warden to kill a wild animal if it causes threat to human life or property. We are not demanding the government to cull all the wild boars, but only the ones that damage crops,” said Mr. Kandasamy, who wanted the Forest Department to settle compensation for crop damage caused by wild boars in the district.
Forest Department officials said the panel that visited Kerala to study the culling practice would come out with a report.
A senior official from the Department said that a significant population of wild boars, which are engaged in crop raiding, are not coming out from forests. They have colonised outside forests, hiding in vegetation along the sides of streams, thickets in unused lands, etc,.
