Gujarat: To mitigate man-animal conflicts, forest dept to arrange three breeding centres

In an try to mitigate the human-animal conflicts in Gujarat and to extend the prey-base for wild animals in its forests, the State Forest Department is planning to arrange three breeding centres of ungulates, jungle fowls and hares in Sabarkantha, Dahod and Bhavnagar districts.
The initiative is a part of a Project for Ecosystem Restoration in Gujarat (PERG) to be funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which has sanctioned a tender mortgage price Rs 905 crore to the Forest division for the undertaking of 9 years’ length. PERG, anticipated to start this yr, consists of restoration of varied ecologically delicate areas of the state like coastal areas, grasslands, wetlands and degraded forests.
A prime forest official stated, “The concept behind setting up the breeding centres is to make sure that wild animals get enough prey-base within forests so that they do not venture out and come in conflict with humans… By breeding these animals – like ungulates, jungle fowls and Indian hares – and releasing them into forests, we will try to increase the prey-base.”

As per the official, the proposed breeding centre in Sabarkantha will breed animals of ungulate household.
In Devgadh Baria of Dahod district, Indian hares will likely be bred. And the proposed centre in Bhavnagar district will witness breeding of purple jungle fowls.
The undertaking is deliberate to handle the lion and sloth bear landscapes within the state that may embody leopard habitat too in these landscapes. As per forest division officers, main man-animal conflicts in Gujarat are noticed attributable to leopards, Asiatic lions, sloth bears, crocodiles, blue bulls and wild boars. They add that wild animals, particularly lion and leopard, assault and kill massive variety of home livestock and even human beings. And the breeding facilities are an try to enhance the habitat of those wild animals by rising the prey-base in forests.
Forest officers additionally stated that they’ve felt a necessity for the breeding centres of ungulates, hare and purple jungle fowl since forests of Gujarat, aside from lion panorama, have scarce prey base.

As per the official figures of the Forest division, in final 5 years between 2016-17 and 2020-21, completely different wildlife circles of Gujarat have witnessed whole 116 instances of human deaths, 679 instances of human accidents, and 21,273 instances of accidents or deaths of cattle in incidents of man-animal conflicts. In all these instances, the state authorities has paid ex-gratia quantities to the victims and their households working into crores.
The forest division is planning to spend round Rs 32 lakh to arrange the three breeding centres.