UPSC Prelims 2017 · Question 41 of 99

UPSC Prelims 2017 question on Schedule I Tortoise Protection

In India, if a species of tortoise is declared protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, what does it imply?

  1. It enjoys the same level of protection as the tiger.
  2. It no longer exists in the wild, a few individuals are under captive protection; and it is impossible to prevent its extinction.
  3. It is endemic to a particular region of India.
  4. Both (b) and (c) stated above are correct in this context.
Show answer

Answer: A. It enjoys the same level of protection as the tiger.

Verdict

The answer is that it enjoys the same level of protection as the tiger. Schedule I confers the highest degree of protection regardless of species.

Analysis

The Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 has six schedules conferring varying degrees of protection. Schedule I and Part II of Schedule II provide absolute protection, and offences against species listed there attract the highest penalties. The tiger is a Schedule I species, so a tortoise placed in the same schedule receives the same legal protection. The second option is wrong because Schedule I listing says nothing about extinction in the wild. The third is wrong because the schedules are about legal status, not endemism, and the fourth compounds both errors.

Source

NCERT, Contemporary India II, chapter on forest and wildlife resources.

How to crack it

Read a schedule as a statement about legal consequence, not about biology. Listing tells you the penalty attached to harming the species; it does not tell you the population size, the range or the conservation status, which are the province of the IUCN Red List instead. Keeping the legal instrument and the scientific assessment apart resolves a whole family of questions, since UPSC routinely swaps one for the other.

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