As per Section 62 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, Indian States can send a list of wild animals to the Centre with a request to declare them vermin and enable their killing. The Central Government has the power to, by notification, declare any wild animal vermin, other than those specified in Schedule I and part 11 of Schedule H of the law, for any area for a given period of time. Till the notification is in force, these animals will be deprived of any kind of protection whatsoever under that law. Vermin are wild animals which are harmful to crops or people. A notification was issued on March 14, 2016 by the Central government, declaring monkeys vermin in Shimla for a period of six months and vide another notification in May this year, to treat monkeys as vermin for a period of one year in 38 tehsils of the State.The Himachal Pradesh government has sterilised one lakh monkeys till date out of the two lakhs plus reported monkeys in the State. The government has stated that t...