IWN Daily Digest — Sunday, 18 May 2026
On 27 May 2026, Kerala’s wild boar culling order expires. The state government is not waiting to see what happens next.
A fresh Forest Department order has extended culling permissions through May 2027, on the recommendation of the Chief Wildlife Warden, citing continued threat to human life and agriculture across the state. Under the order, Honorary Wildlife Wardens and authorised officers of local self-government institutions can issue permits to hunt or arrange the killing of wild boar entering residential areas and causing damage. Monthly culling reports must be submitted to the nearest Range Forest Office.
It is a one-year extension of a holding measure. The underlying conflict — between farmers losing livelihoods on Kerala’s forest edge and a national wildlife protection framework built for an earlier conservation era — is no closer to resolution.
The scale of the problem
Wild boar have become one of Kerala’s most persistent agricultural crises. The state recorded 55,839 cases of wild animal attacks between 2016 and 2023. Farmers in 243 panchayats across 54 assembly constituencies have reported being affected by the boar alone. A 2026 study in the Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu found that 90 per cent of farmers named wildlife conflict as their primary production risk, with wild boar among the top culprits alongside peafowl and elephants.
Why the Centre won’t act
The legal knot is Section 62 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, which gives only the Union government the power to declare a species “vermin” — removing its Schedule protections and permitting culling. Kerala has asked repeatedly. The Centre has refused each time, most recently under Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav, on the grounds that wild boar are significant prey for tigers and leopards — and that removing their protection could push predation pressure onto livestock and people.
There is genuine ecological substance to that concern. It does not make it easier for the farmer whose tapioca field has been destroyed three seasons running.
What Kerala has tried
Blocked at the Centre, Kerala has run a patchwork of state-level workarounds: periodic vermin declarations in specific regions, delegation of culling authority to local bodies, a pool of roughly 250 empanelled shooters for controlled operations. A recent directive attempting to restrict culling to weapons licensed for crop protection — which would have excluded nearly half the shooter pool — was quietly shelved after farmer groups pointed out it would cripple response capacity.
Kerala also passed its own Wildlife Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2025, which would have empowered the Chief Wildlife Warden to order culling without waiting for central approval. Because wildlife sits on the Concurrent List, any state law conflicting with central legislation requires Presidential assent. The Kerala Governor forwarded the bill to the President in early 2026. It has not been cleared.
The May 2027 extension keeps the lights on. It does not turn on the light.
Sources: Onmanorama · Down to Earth · Down to Earth · The News Minute
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