Catholic Prelate Slams Indian State Over Wild Animal Attacks

(UCA News) — A Catholic bishop in southern Indian Kerala state has accused its communists-led government of inaction after 12 people, including Christians, were killed in wild animal attacks in the past two months.

“The [Kerala] state government is not doing enough to restrict wild animals in the forest,” said Bishop John Nellikunnel of Idukki diocese in the state.

Nellikunnel also joined a protest march convened by the All Kerala Catholic Congress, a laity organization of the Syro-Malabar Church, in Idukki district on March 4.

Some 22 percent of this northern district’s estimated one million people are Christians, mostly members of the Eastern rite Church based in Kerala.

The farmers want the government to protect their lives and livelihoods from rising attacks by wild animals, particularly elephants, which enter human habitats seeking water and food as forest resources dry up in the four-month-long summer starting in February.

“A vast majority of the people living in the periphery of the forests are living in fear, and the government should find a permanent solution to this serious problem,” the prelate said.

Nellikunnel said the government has been ignoring the desperate pleas of the farmers for years on the pretext of protecting wildlife and the environment.

“The government should ensure no life is lost due to the human-animal conflict anymore,” he said.

Nellikunnel said if the government failed to act with urgency, “the diocese will join the farmers in more such protests until their safety is ensured.”

Besides the elephants, “the wild boars make life miserable for the farmers as they destroy the standing crops,” said Father Jins Karakkat, director of media commission in Idukki diocese.

Most farmers in the district grow spices such as cardamom and pepper, besides other seasonal cash crops.

“The wild boars destroy tapioca, which is our staple food,” said Baby Thomas, a Catholic farmer.

“Nobody cultivates vegetables and other food items anymore, and we’re now dependent on outside supplies,” Thomas told UCA News on March 5.

Till the wild animal menace started a few years ago, local farmers used to be self-sufficient in their basic food requirements, he added.

Kerala borders the Western Ghats, a range of mountains along the western coast of India, which has some 10,000 or about 25 percent of wild Asian elephants in the world.

The farmers blame stringent laws like the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 for their current plight.

The law prescribes a jail term of up to seven years and steep fines for harming wild animals, though it is permissible to kill them if they pose a threat to human life.

“Obtaining permission to kill wild animals like wild boars is very tedious, and therefore, people continue to suffer,” said Father Mathew Xavier, a Catholic priest.

Fifty-nine people have lost their lives in wild animal attacks in Kerala from April 1, 2024, to Feb. 11, 2025, reports the South First website.