Conservation and Compensation: Tackling the Rhesus Macaque Menace in Himachal Pradesh

Gist A recent fatal rhesus macaque attack in Shimla has exposed the governance vacuum and financial complications created by the Wild Life Protection Amendment Act, 2022 , which removed the species from its protected status. This legislative change reclassified the monkeys as stray animals, thereby shifting the responsibility of managing them from state forest departments to under-equipped urban local bodies. Aspirants must understand this issue as a classic case study of how statutory amendments in environmental law can inadvertently trigger cascading challenges in human-wildlife conflict management, victim compensation, and local civic capacity. Background Under the original Wild Life Protection Act, 1972 , rhesus macaques were listed as a protected species under Part I of Schedule II, placing their management and conservation directly under the mandate of state forest departments, which received Central funding for this purpose. The Wild Life Protection Amendment Act, 2022 rationalised the schedules and removed the rhesus macaque from the protected list. Legally, this downgraded the macaque to the status of a common stray animal, transferring the jurisdictional responsibility of population control and conflict management from specialised…