Air rifles for farmers to scare away wild animals

Farmers have continuously requested the Agriculture Ministry to provide shotguns to prevent crop damage caused by wild animals, the Ministry said in a media release yesterday. Agriculture Minister Mahinda Amaraweera attended the district agricultural committee meetings of the Vavuniya, Kilinochchi, Mullaitivu, Jaffna and Puttalam districts and even at those meetings, the farmers made requests to provide them with shotguns.

At present, crop damage caused by wild animals has increased and among the animals that cause crop damage, Toque macaque, peacocks and giant squirrels are the most prominent. Currently, these animals have been removed from the protected animal list, while wild elephants are still included in the protected animal list.

Although the farmers demanded shotguns to prevent crop damage from wild animals, the Agriculture Ministry started distributing air rifles at a concessional price from Sunday (22). Yesterday morning, the Agriculture Minister started the distribution of air rifles to farmers in a programme held in Angunakolapelessa.

Accordingly, arrangements were made yesterday to distribute 268 air rifles to the farmers. The Minister who said that crop damage caused by wild animals has increased and farmers are constantly requesting to provide them with shotguns to prevent crop damage.

Crop damage is mostly caused by Toque macaques. Because of this, even though the initial steps were taken to provide 100,000 Toque macaques to zoos in China, the programme was disrupted due to lawsuits filed by environmental organizations.

As there is a risk of a future food crisis, the destruction of cultivated crops by wild animals has created a serious crisis.

The proposals presented by these environmental organizations to prevent crop damage caused by wild animals are not practical at all.

The Minister also mentioned that the suggestions presented by these environmental organizations were that saris should be hung around the cultivations; plates should be tied to the coconut trees, and half an acre of cultivated farms should be set aside for wild animals.

Therefore, in an effort to prevent crop damage, measures were taken to distribute air rifles at the request of farmers, and the Government has allocated funds for this purpose this year, he said.

However, the Minister stated that they cannot give shotguns to harm the animals, and asked farmers not to use these air rifles to kill animals, but only to drive them away, and not to use these air rifles against people under any circumstance.

He also mentioned that if any farmer uses these air rifles to harm people, it would be mandatory to enforce the law against them.

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