Why no hunting in India, and could it ever be re-opened?

[towserthemouser]

I'm hoping I can entice @Hunter-Habib to join in this thread with historical perspective and thoughts about the current reality and the future..... I suspect there are few individuals who can speak with more knowledge on this subject.

Listened to a great podcast yesterday (Blood Origins Ep. 559) where the host did an interview with Shahid Zaman, who is a government wildlife officer in Pakistan. He described the success they've had in reviving Markhor populations to huntable levels, the notable impacts to local communities from cash, jobs, protein, the general reduction in meat and other poaching as the local people have stepped up to stop poaching and protect a resource they now understand is valuable, etc. (none of this will be a surprise to most here, who understand the role of hunting in conservation). He talked about the importance of offering permits and licenses to the local people so they can develop and maintain a hunting culture. He pointed out that if you're protecting and preserving Markhor and Ibex, the snow leopard gets protected also. He discussed the difficulties with CITES over how they should manage their own wildlife........ He said that Ibex are doing so well they can now be seen commonly from the main highways. He discussed the popularity of weekend partridge shoots with local Pakistani people as well as traveling international hunters, etc.

All this caused me to think about their next door neighbor, India....... Once considered the finest hunting destination in all the world, and the source of many great hunters and hunting stories.

I would like to understand more about the historical reasons for the hunting closure in India, how that issue is now viewed by the modern Indian government and the general populace, how much poaching is currently taking place, how wildlife populations and ecosystems are faring, etc. I would like to know if there have been or are any meaningful conversations in India about the role of hunting in conservation, and whether there is any hope of it ever re-opening.

Mr. Zaman said the value of a Markhor in Pakistan has recently been as high as $270k....... I can only imagine the sums of money and resources that a tiger permit could bring to India, not to mention all the other wonderful game animals they have there.

I see a sort of parallel with Kenya, since both countries banned hunting in the 1970s. We know that Kenyan wildlife populations have suffered a drastic decline since the ban, no doubt the reasons are complex and arguments will be made on all sides, but clearly "It's not working." India also is a historically epic hunting destination, and I would love to learn more about the question of hunting in India.

 

[JHT]

Here’s a great documentary I watched the other night with some insight. Blood Origins is also working on a piece about tigers in India.

 

[Hunter-Habib]

Hi, @towserthemouser

I'm Bangladeshi, not Indian. And I generally try to avoid making comments publicly about India, because whenever fellow forum members in the past have spoken critically about India, trolls have always joined the forum in an attempt to discredit them and this has always resulted in some very ugly public exchanges on these forums. I try to stay away from all that, because I last visited India many years ago and I have no intention of ever returning there except out of compulsion. Especially now that we (in Bangladesh) kicked out the previous pro-Indian bootlicking government and have a lot of ongoing tensions with India.

I don't know if you're aware of this or not. But last year, an Indian wannabe film maker made a documentary on You Tube about me and my tiger hunting stories without my consent by using information and photographs taken from my autobiography. I had to exert a great deal of effort in order to get that documentary removed.

But anyway, I'll answer your question in as diplomatic a way as possible.

Hunting was banned in India by the Indira Gandhi regime via the passing of the so-called Wildlife Protection Act-1972. A portion of the Hindu population in India consider the consumption of any animal products to be taboo. So hunting and even meat eating are big offenses to them. When Indira Gandhi came to power, a lot of her supporters had these religious beliefs. Her cabinet was full of these people and they also had agendas to remove Western culture from India. As well as to disarm India's Royalty (Maharajas, Zamindars, Nawabs, etc) and strip them of their wealth. And to tighten up laws on the import & ownership of firearms.


Although she herself was very anti hunting, Indira Gandhi initially had no plans to ban hunting in India. This was actually the brainchild of a British jerk (one of those so-called “Conservationists”) named Guy Mountford. He was a founder member of the W.W.F and he wrote a book called “Vanishing Jungles” where he wrote a lot of anti hunting garbage about East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1969. He also eventually convinced Indira Gandi to implement the hunting ban in India.

Emboldened by Guy Mount Ford and his strong position in the WWF, Indira Gandhi enacted the ban in 1972. Import of firearms got formally banned in 1980. Laws on firearms ownership were tightened and starting from 1972... an Indian citizen could not keep more than three firearms (this was further reduced down to two in 2023). Furthermore, the 1972 act prohibits any Indian from owning any firearms at all if they live near any forested areas. Not that this did anything in order to combat poaching... since poachers employ folidol, snares, pit fall traps & locally made muzzle loaders.

Over the years since 1972, India's youth started becoming indoctrinated against hunting, firearms ownership & meat eating. For this reason, any Indian film or work of art which depicts hunters or gun owners or meat eaters... mostly portrays us in a very negative light. And Indian media loves to rip our kind to shreds.

In 2015, the Indian government finally realized that exploding populations of game is indeed becoming too much of a problem in rural areas to ignore. So they began to authorize the culling of blue bulls and wild boars. But none of the meat from the culled animals is (legally) permitted to be consumed by anybody. All of it is buried under the ground, because the Indian government would rather allow hundreds of thousands of pounds of fresh free protein to rot than to permit their citizens (including malnourished starving ones with absolutely zero aversion to meat eating) to commit the “Reprehensible act of consuming wildlife”. These are screenshots sent to me by one of the cullers. The wild boars are being thrown into the pit for burial. The blue bulls will also be given the same treatment.

If I had my way, all of the fresh venison (from the blue bulls) and pork (from the wild boars that come to feed at the crop fields) would be freely donated to impoverished local communities. Or at the very least, sold for a subsidized price at a government auction (if the government is feeling like earning a little revenue to pay the cullers for their efforts & ammunition expenditure). The only game animals which I would sanction for 100 % carcass disposal... would be the wild boars that feed on the garbage dumps at the city outskirts. Since those are extremely likely to contain trichinosis in the meat. And they should be kept away from human consumption.

In my humble opinion, hunting will never be relegalized in India again. Newer generations have completely been indoctrinated against it. And the political party currently running the show in India... as as staunch vegetarians as is humanly possible. India also tried very hard to get hunting & firearms ownership banned in our country as well, through our previous government. Fortunately, they didn't succeed and that government has been ousted.

Hunting will survive in Pakistan and even thrive for future generations to come. Because newer generations are being introduced to it. In Bangladesh... at the very least, bird & deer hunting will survive because newer generations (especially those living in rural areas) see this as perfectly normal. But not in India.

Interestingly enough, it's only the politicians (especially the party currently in power in India), urban dwellers & people living comfortably far away from rural areas (i.e the hotspots of human-wildlife conflict) in India that champion the concept of a plant based lifestyle. The thousands of impoverished & starving rural Indians who have their crop fields and livestock routinely ravaged by fauna (of both the herbivorous or carnivorous varieties) on a daily basis feel very differently about wildlife & meat eating. To them, all those crop raiding & livestock killing fauna (whose populations used to formerly get controlled pre 1972 by licensed hunters) are either:
A) A delicious source of protein
B) A menace to their livelihoods
C) A source of hides & antlers to sell on the black market

 

[towserthemouser]

Hi, @towserthemouser

I'm Bangladeshi, not Indian. And I generally try to avoid making comments publicly about India, because whenever fellow forum members in the past have spoken critically about India, trolls have always joined the forum in an attempt to discredit them and this has always resulted in some very ugly public exchanges on these forums. I try to stay away from all that, because I last visited India many years ago and I have no intention of ever returning there except out of compulsion. Especially now that we (in Bangladesh) kicked out the previous pro-Indian bootlicking government and have a lot of ongoing tensions with India.

I don't know if you're aware of this or not. But last year, an Indian wannabe film maker made a documentary on You Tube about me and my tiger hunting stories without my consent by using information and photographs taken from my autobiography. I had to exert a great deal of effort in order to get that documentary removed.

But anyway, I'll answer your question in as diplomatic a way as possible.

Hunting was banned in India by the Indira Gandhi regime via the passing of the so-called Wildlife Protection Act-1972. A portion of the Hindu population in India consider the consumption of any animal products to be taboo. So hunting and even meat eating are big offenses to them. When Indira Gandhi came to power, a lot of her supporters had these religious beliefs. Her cabinet was full of these people and they also had agendas to remove Western culture from India. As well as to disarm India's Royalty (Maharajas, Zamindars, Nawabs, etc) and strip them of their wealth. And to tighten up laws on the import & ownership of firearms.


Although she herself was very anti hunting, Indira Gandhi initially had no plans to ban hunting in India. This was actually the brainchild of a British jerk (one of those so-called “Conservationists”) named Guy Mountford. He was a founder member of the W.W.F and he wrote a book called “Vanishing Jungles” where he wrote a lot of anti hunting garbage about East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) in 1969. He also eventually convinced Indira Gandi to implement the hunting ban in India.

Emboldened by Guy Mount Ford and his strong position in the WWF, Indira Gandhi enacted the ban in 1972. Import of firearms got formally banned in 1980. Laws on firearms ownership were tightened and starting from 1972... an Indian citizen could not keep more than three firearms (this was further reduced down to two in 2023). Furthermore, the 1972 act prohibits any Indian from owning any firearms at all if they live near any forested areas. Not that this did anything in order to combat poaching... since poachers employ folidol, snares, pit fall traps & locally made muzzle loaders.

Over the years since 1972, India's youth started becoming indoctrinated against hunting, firearms ownership & meat eating. For this reason, any Indian film or work of art which depicts hunters or gun owners or meat eaters... mostly portrays us in a very negative light. And Indian media loves to rip our kind to shreds.

In 2015, the Indian government finally realized that exploding populations of game is indeed becoming too much of a problem in rural areas to ignore. So they began to authorize the culling of blue bulls and wild boars. But none of the meat from the culled animals is (legally) permitted to be consumed by anybody. All of it is buried under the ground, because the Indian government would rather allow hundreds of thousands of pounds of fresh free protein to rot than to permit their citizens (including malnourished starving ones with absolutely zero aversion to meat eating) to commit the “Reprehensible act of consuming wildlife”. These are screenshots sent to me by one of the cullers. The wild boars are being thrown into the pit for burial. The blue bulls will also be given the same treatment.
View attachment 685261View attachment 685262
If I had my way, all of the fresh venison (from the blue bulls) and pork (from the wild boars that come to feed at the crop fields) would be freely donated to impoverished local communities. Or at the very least, sold for a subsidized price at a government auction (if the government is feeling like earning a little revenue to pay the cullers for their efforts & ammunition expenditure). The only game animals which I would sanction for 100 % carcass disposal... would be the wild boars that feed on the garbage dumps at the city outskirts. Since those are extremely likely to contain trichinosis in the meat. And they should be kept away from human consumption.

In my humble opinion, hunting will never be relegalized in India again. Newer generations have completely been indoctrinated against it. And the political party currently running the show in India... as as staunch vegetarians as is humanly possible. India also tried very hard to get hunting & firearms ownership banned in our country as well, through our previous government. Fortunately, they didn't succeed and that government has been ousted.

Interestingly enough, it's only the politicians (especially the party currently in power in India), urban dwellers & people living comfortably far away from rural areas (i.e the hotspots of human-wildlife conflict) in India that champion the concept of a plant based lifestyle. The thousands of impoverished & starving rural Indians who have their crop fields and livestock routinely ravaged by fauna (of both the herbivorous or carnivorous varieties) on a daily basis feel very differently about wildlife & meat eating. To them, all those crop raiding & livestock killing fauna (whose populations used to formerly get controlled pre 1972 by licensed hunters) are either:
A) A delicious source of protein
B) A menace to their livelihoods
C) A source of hides & antlers to sell on the black market

@Hunter-Habib thank you for your thoughtful response. I apologize for misunderstanding your nationality and hope no offense was taken.

The culling photos you shared are astonishing. What a waste.

All this is pretty concerning; I can easily imagine a very similar scenario developing in the USA under certain political regimes, and as we become ever more urbanized, and I don't think it's a good thing. Certainly we have powerful media and cultural influences who seem to work constantly for that goal.

Propaganda is so difficult to combat. The one side has only to shout a lie repeatedly and in a convincing tone. The other side has to carefully gather and document facts, evidence, and data, and all that is usually relegated to Page 16 and poorly understood or simply missed or ignored by most.

Yikes.

 

[Hunter-Habib]

@Hunter-Habib thank you for your thoughtful response. I apologize for misunderstanding your nationality and hope no offense was taken.

The culling photos you shared are astonishing. What a waste.

All this is pretty concerning; I can easily imagine a very similar scenario developing in the USA under certain political regimes, and as we become ever more urbanized, and I don't think it's a good thing. Certainly we have powerful media and cultural influences who seem to work constantly for that goal.

Propaganda is so difficult to combat. The one side has only to shout a lie repeatedly and in a convincing tone. The other side has to carefully gather and document facts, evidence, and data, and all that is usually relegated to Page 16 and poorly understood or simply missed or ignored by most.

Yikes.

No apologies necessary, my friend. Not trying to sell any books, but if you ever manage to read a copy of my autobiography… it will clarify a lot of the issues revolving around hunting & wildlife conservation in the Indian subcontinent from 1947 until 2022 (when I had authored the book).

 

[Safari1]

The answer is easy...too many people!

 

[Rafiki]

I got curious about the recovery of the tiger population in India since the ban on hunting. Apparently there were 1827 tiger is the wild in 1972; today there are about 3167. That's an increase of 1340 tigers in 53 years. That hardly seems like a steller record.

 

[Nyati]

The answer is easy...too many people!

I would say it´s about religion.

 

[Hillbilly Marine]

I got curious about the recovery of the tiger population in India since the ban on hunting. Apparently there were 1827 tiger is the wild in 1972; today there are about 3167. That's an increase of 1340 tigers in 53 years. That hardly seems like a steller record.

I would assume that the lack of recovery is due to poaching and/or poisoning. Their only value is nothing

 

[grand veneur]

That is the way it is. You cannot always judge everything by the same standard. Cultures and especially religion, have an influence on many societies, including when it comes to hunting. Regarding hunting in India, @Hunter-Habib has reported extensively on this and when it comes to hunting worldwide, many countries around the world are moving more toward a ban than a reopening. In the 50 years that I was involved with hunting worldwide, I have never seen a country where hunting was no longer practiced reopen it. I have only seen the increasing lost of hunting areas.

 

[Muskox]

My grand parents and mother lived in Bangaladesh, India and Pakistan in the 1960's. My grandfather was a batch plant engineer on major concrete construction in all three nations.

He hunted in at least 1 or 2 of these nations. I do not know the back stories of how it went down. I know there was a British PH named Stony or something like that, that was in charge of whatever forest they were near.

They shot what I believe are muntjac, sambar and maybe barasingha. I do not remember much of the stories as I was told them when I was 6 or 7. I wasn't smart enough to get the entire history down when I was older, and my grandfather and grandmother died when I was in the military stationed in Italy 20 years ago. 8 days apart. I do not believe they ever got a tiger, and what else they got I do not know. Some kind of monkey perhaps, from the story about my uncle.

 

[grand veneur]

When I was in my early twenties of age, I dreamed about hunting in legendary regions of this world. Now that I am over 70, I am somewhat more familiar with the realities of this world. We should focus more on preserving the areas where we still hunt than dreaming about reopening lost hunting areas.

 

[Montymm]

Hi folks, first post here, but not a troll definitely. A beef eating Brahmin from Assam, India, I have been following this forum for ages now. I found it in Google looking for hunting stories, and now follow it regularly for amusement, mostly politics and the jokes threads. It was through Monish's posts, wonder why he has stopped posting now.

I have never hunted in my life if you exclude a few little birds when I was young, but where we come from hunting and fishing used to be a part of life. Fishing is still a big deal in the villages, and in the remote hills hunting (or rather poaching) is apparently fairly common. I have vague memories from the early 80’s, when a few relatives used to bring in various birds from their hunting trips. I have no earthly idea what it takes to own a gun in that region now. There were severe militancy issues in Assam in the 80s and most of the guns were taken away, either by the militants or the government. One of my uncles had some kind of a gun, the government took it and returned it a long time later. I can imagine some of you taking offense at “some kind of a gun”, my apologies for that. It probably used a 35 Whelen though! Another relative lost a prized rifle to the militants. I have heard that one great great grandfather from that side of the family had killed 99 tigers. No proof, but since my father keeps telling this I assume it to be true.

I have no compunction about killing and eating animals and fish. I spent almost 5 years in Oregon and fished every chance I got. Salmon in the rivers like Wilson and Trask, shad in the Willamette, trout and bass at Hagg lake…. That’s what I miss most about America. I knew all of Corbett’s stories before I could actually read them, my old bedtime stories, and that has left me with a phobia. I imagine tigers behind every bush when I walk a village road at night. Ghosts and snakes no, imaginary tigers scare me to death.

That sets some background about me. I did find some earlier posts from @Hunter-Habib perhaps a little too hard on us common Indians, but I agree fully with him on this. I am sure he has his years and numbers spot on, but I do not know! You see the problem there perhaps; I am Indian born and brought up here. I am very interested in hunting and fishing, but still someone like Hunter Habib has infinitely more knowledge than me about our rules and regulations related to hunting. There is no point knowing, for most of us. I know some poaching happens, but organized hunting in India? Not going to happen. There is no public support, and perhaps vegetarians are only partially to blame. People who can afford to hunt are mostly city dwellers now and cannot imagine seeing blood. Poor people in the cities will keep on struggling to just get by. People in remote areas with access will continue to poach where they can, but they usually do not have a big say on such things. The super rich will go hunting elsewhere. That is true for most of India, and like I said if there are exceptions, I am not aware of them. Any party that tries to legalize hunting will lose votes, end of the story.

Indian middle and upper middle-class folks, as a rule, are not into outdoor activities like hunting and fishing at all. Blood disgusts most of them. In Oregon I knew quite some Indians doing very well mainly in IT, while they thought a 40k to 50K USD car was cheap enough their eyes bulged when they saw my measly collection of 15 fishing rods. They called me extravagant and wasteful. Won’t even touch a worm when I took some of the kids fishing. Clean a fish or a bird? No way! Process a deer? Faint at the suggestion. Even most non-vegetarian Indians would not dream of eating venison, forget processing an animal. Even if there is push to open hunting, most Indian will either oppose it or just be apathetic about it. Religion and culture both influence this.

Long post but monitoring some work right now with nothing much to do. The Friday night beers have helped too!

I also wanted to thank you all for your posts. I would probably not have found Ruark and Capstick without this forum.

 

[Hunter-Habib]

My grand parents and mother lived in Bangaladesh, India and Pakistan in the 1960's. My grandfather was a batch plant engineer on major concrete construction in all three nations.

He hunted in at least 1 or 2 of these nations. I do not know the back stories of how it went down. I know there was a British PH named Stony or something like that, that was in charge of whatever forest they were near.

They shot what I believe are muntjac, sambar and maybe barasingha. I do not remember much of the stories as I was told them when I was 6 or 7. I wasn't smart enough to get the entire history down when I was older, and my grandfather and grandmother died when I was in the military stationed in Italy 20 years ago. 8 days apart. I do not believe they ever got a tiger, and what else they got I do not know. Some kind of monkey perhaps, from the story about my uncle.

Jonathan Stonewall "Stoney". He was a Beat Officer during the days of the British Imperial Forest Service prior to 1947. Later during the East Pakistani era, he chose to remain behind in our part of the world because he married a Bengali lady. The East Pakistani Department of Forests made him the Station Officer of the Shomeshwari Forest Range in the Garo Hills of Mymensingh in the Northern tip of modern day Bangladesh. He used to supervise hunts for foreign VIPs there under authorization from the Department of Forests. Mostly red jungle fowl, green pigeon, Sambar, Muntjac, wild boar & one Asian sloth bear (in 1961). Always from elephant howdahs. He was one of my part time lecturers at the University of Peshawar, when I was studying Principles of Forestry in 1967. Good, friendly man. I have two photographs with him. He was instrumental in introducing modern elephant Khedda operations into our part of the world.

He passed away in 1969 from lung cancer. My son currently owns his Savage Model 99 in .300 Savage.

 

[PerH]

Habib used to be the Chief Conservator of Forests for an entire country (all of Bangladesh) for 2 terms. So if anybody's qualifed to know about this topic, I'm not surprised that it's him.

 

[Russ16]

I would assume that the lack of recovery is due to poaching and/or poisoning. Their only value is nothing

I’m guessing habitat loss has a big role as well.