With a lifetime of experience behind him, Nawab Shafath Ali Khan - India's most celebrated hunter in recent times, fails to see why the government is allowing young and inexperienced hunters to go ahead and kill man-eating leopards and tigers in Himachal Pradesh. "Animal culling is not a sport. You do not just sling a gun and walk off into the woods to kill an animal," he says. "Culling is first about following and observing the animals, identifying a few old males, killing them to make the herd feel there is a threat without harming the rest of them. A few firecrackers to guide them into the direction they should be headed completes the job."

"All animals are born with the fear of man, we just need to remind them of it."

Gun Geek

"I was trained in culling animals in Tanzania, South Africa, where I went to study this specifically. My grandfather was a consultant to the British Raj for elephant culling," he shares. "Every country that takes nature seriously has well-trained culling officers to help keep human-animal conflict at bay. It is only in India that a handful of mindless self-proclaimed activists have ruined the image of culling. It has been repeatedly portrayed as a crime against life. Culling is a scientific process."

Sudhakar Reddy

"At present, if the government is encouraging young and inexperienced hunters to kill man-eaters, it is wrong. A wounded tiger or leopard is far more dangerous, the slightest mistake could cost an additional innocent life. Also, these young hunters do not understand the change in mannerisms of a man-eater," Khan emphasises.

"Once a tiger or leopard has got the taste of human flesh, it undergoes certain changes. It stalks humans very differently from how it stalks its usual prey. Since human flesh is not the natural food for these animals, it affects their behaviour. Do the young hunters claiming to kill man-eaters even know this difference? If they don't, they might just kill a normal tiger or leopard and call it a man-eater while the actual animal escapes to strike again!"

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The Hindu

Nawab Shafath Ali Khan is a conservationist who understands that nature needs balance to function. "Less than 30 years ago, the total population of elephants in India was a little over 15,000 and last year, it was recorded at nearly 36,000. Where do we keep these elephants now? Conservation does not mean encouraging to breed and multiply. People in Bihar, Jharkhand, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra among others are facing the wrath of elephants. If you try to tell the affected people on why they should participate in conserving the animal, they will not care."

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Citing a recent example from one of his interactions with villagers on dealing with tigers, he says, "There were about 200 people present there including forest officials and the villagers were openly asking me to advise them on forms of poison they could use to kill the tigers that would not be detected later on.

In this age of social media activism, we fail to understand that we cannot turn a blind eye to the over 4 lakh people who live around forests."

Gun Geek

Khan was recently in Bihar for the culling of nilgai and lauds the efforts of the state to ensure trained culling officials are present to handle conflict situations. "For the villager who has not seen proper rain in two years, who has borrowed beyond his credit limit to provide for his family and invest in his crop, to see his ready-to-harvest crop being devoured by a herd of nilgai or destroyed by monkeys - there is no room for talk about conservation. It is only when a culling officer stays with the afflicted village, identifies the issue and finds out the least damaging path to turn the animals away from the village, that he does what he does."

"Even when culling takes place, pregnant members and young males are not shot."

Sudhakar Reddy

"What I do not understand is why have we not been systematically culling animals to prevent this unrest over the past 30-40 years?" he asks. "We have failed to keep animals numbers in check. In the name of conservation, we have blatantly overlooked our capacity. All our tiger reserves are full, where do the tigers go now? In the past few years, an increasing number of tigers and leopards have started to live outside the core regions, in buffer zones and yet the census is conducted in the core regions alone."

"This means that the numbers by Project Tiger is wrong, we have a lot more tigers in India than reported."

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Calling upon the need for better-trained culling officers in every state, Khan says, "Trained culling officers will not kill for sport or pleasure. I have never killed for pleasure. It pains me to take the life of an animal. I have moved completely to tranquilising guns now. Culling is humane, not only for people but also for nature." Khan always acts with the government's permission and ensures that concerned forest officials are with him on all assignments.