- The Ministry of Environment,Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC) has launched a project for undertaking ‘immunocontraceptive measures’ for population management of four species of wild animals.
- The four species of wild animals are (a)elephant (b)wild boar (c)monkey and (d)blue bull(Nilgai).The project will begin in Uttarakhand and then be extended to other States.
- Immunocontraception is a technology that uses a female animal’s immune system to build a protein around the egg that prevents it from fertilising.Contraceptives of this type are not currently available for human use.
- The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and National Institute of Immunology (NII) have developed a protocol of immunocontraception.
- This project was launched as Human-animal conflict has emerged as a major challenge in managing wildlife in the country and human-elephant conflict causes the maximum number of casualties every year.
- According to reply in Parliament,nearly 494 persons were killed by elephants in 2018.Between 2014 and March 2019,2,398 people died in elephant attack in the country with West Bengal accounting for maximum number of such deaths.
