It may look like a gun straight out of a sci-fi movie, but these stun guns imported from United States may soon become part of the Kerala forest department’s armoury. The department plans to use these on stray wild animals that come to human inhabited areas in the buffer zones of forests of the Western Ghat.
Human-animal conflict is a growing menace that has no winners. In some cases animals maul humans and in others the strays are killed. It is to avoid such conflicts in parts of Kerala, that the state government has decided to invest in stun guns that send a minute electric shock and prevent the stray wild animal from coming any closer to villages and towns.
Forest officials said traditional methods – traps, tranquilizer shots – have not been effective in subduing a violent animal on the prowl.
“We have lost many lives because we could neither shoot down the animal nor save the victim. The stun guns will be used in life-and-death situations where there is hardly any time for response,” a senior forest official said. He said this device could even be used for overpowering elephants that go on the rampage under ‘musth’. “Usually, it takes hours to calm down such elephants. But one shot from this gun can bring an elephant to its knees, and then mahouts can take over.”
However, wildlife acitivists are not too convinced with the move. They fear that the gun may prove to be more dangerous for the animals that believed. It is also feared that the animal that is given an electric shock may die because of the jolt.
“The government shouldn’t procure these deadly devices; there are many other scientific options to subdue an animal. Man-animal conflicts have been on the rise because forest cover is rapidly shrinking due to road and building construction in forest areas. We are encroaching on animal-land,” said Maneka Gandhi, animal right activist and founder-president of People For Animals.
What she also fears is that the guns have not really been tested and they also cannot be fired until the animal is in close range.
“There has not been any study done on its impact of this weapon on animals. We are not addressing the real problem, but only trying to find short-term solutions that will create more health problems for animals,” she said.
Contrarily, Paramjit Singh, head of Taser International (India), said that 10,000 Taser guns are being used in the USA both by Marshal Services and wildlife officials monitoring safari parks.
“An enquiry conducted by the US justice department found that victims who were high on drugs suffered a cardiac arrest after being shot with it,” he said.
Not so Safe
According to a new comprehensive research carried out in the United States by William Terrill,Michigan State University criminologist stun guns are a controversial weapon. In America some 260,000 electronic control devices, or stun guns, are in use in 11,500 law enforcement agencies.
“The findings are quite complex, in that citizen injuries increased but officer injuries decreased,” Terrill said. “Police agencies have to balance the findings. They have to consider whether this is a trade-off they can accept.”
The researcher says that these guns deliver a painful and immobilizing electrical shock through two prongs that are pressed directly against the suspect or through two barb-tipped wires shot from the weapon. He adds that all other researches have claimed that these guns are not harmful, but his study showed different results.
He studied the use of stun guns for four years in different US cities and towns.
“There has been this increased perception that these devices are effective and safe,” Terrill said. “But in terms of safeness, our data conclusively shows they are not safe to citizens. Now, are there concerns to the point that we’re recommending that law enforcement agencies not use them? Absolutely not. We think there needs to be more careful analysis done, and it has to be done in a way that’s fair and objective.”
While the finding does point that the stun guns are not as safe as they seem to be, using them on wild animals that have strayed into the villages, can perhaps save lives. The guns seem like a better option that direct killing of the animals. It also ensures that the animal gets scared and runs away without a lethal injury. But if the animal dies in the forest because of that stun gun shot, there is no way forest officials can help it.
It may be wiser to train and test the guns before wide use on wildlife.
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This is alarming news. As if illegal electrified fences were not enough! In any case, I think there should be a concerted lockdown on arms use near forests; whether they are firearms or Tasers is irrelevant.
Absolutely agree. In a country of billion plus people, the forest department is unable to find a handful of competent individuals who can simply keep a track of the wild animal movements on the fringes of the forest and inform as well as contain the animals within the forest without applying non-violent means. A technology is not necessarily good just because it is new….