HYDERABAD: Telangana Forest Department has directed all field officers to strictly enforce a prohibition on the caging and confinement of aerial birds.
The direction has been issued in response to an appeal from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India.
Elusing Meru, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and in-charge Chief Wildlife Warden, Telangana, communicated to PETA that the Forest Department is committed to the protection of the birds and is implementing the ban on caging of birds as per the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
In its appeal, PETA India requested that the state take immediate steps to implement the Animal Welfare Board of India’s advisories against the caging of aerial birds issued in 2011, 2013, and 2021.
PETA said that Telangana is the latest to issue directives against this cruel practice. The governments of Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Haryana, and Sikkim have issued similar circulars directing action on and imposing prohibitions on the caging of aerial birds.
“PETA India applauds the Telangana government for taking an important step against the cruel confinement of birds, ” says PETA India Advocacy Associate Shaurya Agrawal. “Birds are born to fly – it is fundamental for their well-being. Yet they are deprived of this natural birthright when they are captured or bred in captivity and locked inside cages.”
According to PETA, this directive aligns with multiple court rulings that emphasise birds’ rights to freedom. In a 2011 judgment, the Gujarat High Court observed that birds have a fundamental right to live freely in the open sky and maintained that they should not be caged. The Hon’ble Delhi High Court echoed this sentiment in 2015, acknowledging the fundamental right of birds to fly, and ruled that caging birds for business or otherwise should not be permitted.