The national bird peacock and Goa’s talisman wild bison are among animals that are proposed to be listed as “nuisance animals” by the Goa government.
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The Minister, however, said that no species of animals or birds, including the peacock, have yet been declared vermin.
Monkeys, wild boars and wild bison will also be culled along with the peacocks.
Speaking to The Pioneer, Tawadkar, who hails from the hilly and agrarian constituency of Canacona, in South Goa, said, “Some farmers have told us that peacocks also were damaging their crops in hilly forest areas”.
Tawadkar told IANS on Friday that a committee of government officials was considering the matter.
The move comes just weeks after Goa’s legislative assembly caused similar consternation when it ruled that the resort state’s beloved coconut trees were not in fact trees, but palms.
Peacock is India’s national bird and is a protected species under the Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
While it is clear that bison and peacock would not figure in the recommendatory list of Goa, the centre has already rejected recommendations of three states – Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Himachal Pradesh – to declare monkey as vermin. When someone wants to kill the national bird and the state animal it is suicidal. Environmentalists fear this could expose these species to mindless killing.
But his senior Congress colleague and opposition leader Pratapsing Rane still insists that wild boar and monkey must be declared a vermin.
In the last assembly, the government said that the wild boars, monkey as well as other wild animals that disrupt the agriculture and horticultural activity and destroy the crops will soon be classified as vermin.
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Shrinking forest cover in Goa has left less space for wildlife, which is encroaching on human habitat.
