Tame the trade

On June 11 this year, forest officials in Dibrugarh, Assam, arrested two men for illegally hunting egrets. The bird is listed under Schedule IV of the Wild Life Protection Act (WLPA), 1972, which protects wild animals from all forms of hunting, capture and trade. Just a fortnight earlier, Customs officials at Mumbai airport had arrested an Indian individual for smuggling more than 50 reptiles from Thailand into the country, including spider-tailed horned vipers and Asian leaf turtles, which are under Schedule IV of WLPA and Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) that regulates trade in wildlife with the aim of curbing their extinction risk.

Hunting has been a customary practice in India, with communities depending on wildlife for meat, medicine, ornaments and rituals. However, hunting and illegal trade have now become commercial, to meet demand for wildlife “trophies”, food and medicines and for exotic pets, within and outside India.

Take the case of pangolins, which have endured decades of hunting pressure with high demand for meat and scales in food and traditional medicine, particularly in East Asia. An ongoing assessment by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) estimates that Indian pangolin populations could have declined by up to 90 per cent over three generations. This is despite pangolins being under Appendix I of CITES and Schedule I of WLPA, with blanket ban on hunting and trade within and outside India. A 2019 report by TRAFFIC India, which monitors wildlife trade, says that 5,772 pangolins were seized from India in 2009-17.

Mammals like slender loris, bats and macaques; birds like parakeets and grey parrots; and reptiles like spiny-tailed lizard and Indian softshell turtle are frequently targeted and captured in illegal wildlife trade. This threatens biodiversity and potentially increases risk of zoonotic spillovers—the global spread of Ebola, mpox, yellow fever, herpes and, possibly, COVID-19, prove this.

The question that now arises is, does the country have robust legal mechanisms for wildlife protection? Internationally, India is a CITES signatory. Our national legislations include WLPA; Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980; and Environmental (Protection) Act, 1986. The latter two address conservation of forests and other wildlife habitats. So they contribute to wildlife protection, but do not deal directly with hunting or trade.

WLPA is hence the overarching law to protect wildlife. The Act did not originally include exotic wild animals listed under CITES. The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change amended the Act in 2022 to align it with CITES regulations on international trade in endangered species, and regulate import and export of all CITES-listed species.

Integrate legislations

The Centre can potentially take more measures to strengthen the scope and ambit of the entire legislative framework to protect wildlife from hunting and trade. This could be done by explicitly listing wildlife crimes as offences in other laws.

Take, for instance, the Indian Customs Act, 1962, which prohibits the import or export of any goods that might endanger the protection of human, animal or plant life or health and the conservation of exhaustible natural resources. The Act also mentions violation of WLPA as a cognisable offense. However, it does not clearly define the “goods” or “exhaustible natural resources”. The law could be directly linked to the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, which governs use, sale and import or export of biological specimens. The Foreign Trade (Development Regulation) Act, 1992, should also explicitly ban transport and trade of WLPA and CITES-listed species. Both Acts could cover carriers and vectors of potential zoonoses, including hunted species.

Similarly, the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, and the associated Pet Shop Rules, 2018, should be amended to ban keeping species under WLPA, IUCN Red List and CITES as pets in shops or houses. The Act and the Rules broadly define animal cruelty as violence or abuse; willfully administering injurious drugs or substances; transport or confinement in cages; failure to provide sufficient food, drink, or shelter; or inciting animal fights for entertainment. The Rules include animals such as dogs, cats, rabbits, rodents and birds, whose ownership and trade are not banned by law, as well as some exotic species like African lovebirds, budgerigars, Amazon parrots, macaws and cockatoos. But, neither the Act nor the Rules mention WLPA- or CITES-listed species or illegally traded wildlife. The cryptic nature of small birds and ornamental fish means that people cannot easily distinguish protected or rare species from common ones. Exotic threatened species like giant Aldabra tortoises, South American iguanas, African pythons, kangaroos and capuchin monkeys have been seized from pet shops.

Third, the Food Safety and Standards Act (FSSA), 2006 and the Food Safety and Standards (Licensing and Registration of Food Businesses) Regulations, 2011, should include provisions to curb sale of wild animal meat. Consumption of wild exotic meat is a major reason driving hunting of wildlife in India. FSSA and its associated Rules permit sale of livestock, poultry and fish, but do not explicitly ban wild animal meat. Similarly, the Arms Act, 1959, which does not mention WLPA or use of firearms to kill animals, can be amended.

Finally, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which makes killing, poisoning, maiming, or rendering useless of animals punishable offences, should include convictions for use of traps, snares, lures, baits and weapons to hunt or injure animals.

Community changes

Strengthened legislation is one crucial component of wildlife protection. The other is facilitating change in communities. Even today, rural markets, fairs, village haats and weekly shandies see sale of turtles, monitor lizards, tiger claws, pangolin scales, animal-based folk medicine and musical instruments, as well as traps, baits and snares.

Local communities should be supported to monitor markets for sale of protected wildlife.

Strict legal penalties must be imposed to control meat markets from selling clandestine bushmeat and other wildlife products. The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Animal Markets Rules, 2018, focus on animal welfare during trade and maintaining records of market sales, but do not mention wild species. Stricter provisions against sale and purchase of wild meat in rural markets, particularly in forest fringes, can help. Providing communities with alternative livelihoods to hunting is essential to reduce demand for wildlife meat and products.

(Vikram Aditya is principal scientist and faculty, Yogesh Pasul is project coordinator, Nikhitha Jagadeesh is research intern, and Krithi K Karanth is chief executive officer at the Centre for Wildlife Studies, Bengaluru)

This article was originally published in the June 1-15, 2025 print edition of Down To Earth