Maharashtra: Oh deer! Forget delayed rains, look what farmers in Aurangabad are facing

The sluggish progress of monsoon isn't the only thing worrying farmers in Aurangabad district. Another is why union ministry of environment and forest's (MoEF's) list of vermin doesn't include black buck, the Indian antelope.

"They come and destroy the tender first shoots," Annabhau Shinde a farmer from Mehboobkheda in Aurangabad's Gangapur tehsil complains about the marauding herds. "For the last three years we're battling drought, so when the first showers hit our field four weeks ago and the weather authorities promised good rainfall, my brother and I hired a tractor and sowed cotton. Now, the rains have vanished and the deer are destroying whatever little is left."

Hemant Padalkar 

In Khultabad tehsil's Golegaon village 76km away, droppings and hoof marks are all that remain of Nazeer Sheikh's devastated field. "We've been facing heavy losses for nearly a decade. Despite changing what we plant, we continue to suffer Rs15,000-20,000 loss per acre every season because the deer like it all," he laments, pointing out how the grass meant for his own goats and cows has also been ravaged. "We aren't heartless. We understand that the poor animals look for food and water. Though they destroy more than they eat, we overlook it and even keep water for them. Now after three successive droughts we're also desperate, because of total crop loss or fields yielding barely enough to cover costs."

Hemant Padalkar 

Mehboobkheda and Golegaon are not isolated instances. Across Vaijapur, Gangapur, Khultabad and Kannad tehsils of Aurangabad, what seemed like cute guest appearances until a decade ago have now slowly grown into a menace that farmers have no clue on how to handle.

Aurangabad-based conservation activist Utkarsh Daithankar, studying the issue for over 15 years, pegs the deer population in the region at around 25,000. "Each of them lives for 10-12 years and begin breeding when barely a year and a half. A doe can give birth to 1-2 offsprings after a six-month gestation," he explains. "The male can have 5-25 females in his herd, and he mates regularly. All this, combined with the fact that there are no predators, has meant that the deer problem keeps growing."

When union environment minister Prakash Javadekar announced on June 9 that animals whose population is very high could be declared vermin and hunted without restriction, many had felt this would solve the black buck problem. But these hopes have been dashed.

Chief conservator of forests, Marathwada circle (under which Aurangabad falls), AR Manda has written to the MoEF, asking for permission to declare the wild boar, not the black buck, as vermin. Manda not only disputes the number of deer in the region, but also downplays the damage they cause. "There might be barely 2,500 deer and not 25,000 as is being claimed. Greed for compensation money has led to the animal being given a bad name," he insists. "90% claims are bogus."

Hemant Padalkar 

dna had reported on the issue in 2011 too. Like now, then too, the forest department had tried to downplay the problem and put the ball back in farmers' court. "'While the National Forest Policy says that every district should maintain forest cover of 33% for ecological balance, in Aurangabad, this has been reduced to less than 5%," says Manda, adding, "Increase in cultivable holdings has had a direct impact on the black buck habitat, and they end up coming near the villages in search of food and water. This region had many natural predators like foxes, wolves and hyenas, but these have been systematically wiped out by locals who thought they were a threat to livestock. With the food chain broken, the number of herbivores, such as the wild boar and black buck, has risen unchecked."

Looks like the man-animal conflict with the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, Schedule-1 protectee will continue.

Translocation failure

In 2009, the forest department had sought MoEF's permission to translocate the deer to a sanctuary in Washim in eastern Vidarbha. The ministry asked for a habitat viability analysis, a monitoring protocol, adherence to guidelines of the Wildlife Institute, Dehradun, and the participation of the Andhra Pradesh forest department which had successfully translocated wild deer in Kurnool. But there were such heavy casualties during the execution of the plan that it was abandoned.